The engineering internship is an integral part of the Bachelor of Engineering degree and lasts minimum 20 weeks (=100 working days), corresponding to 30 ECTS/half an academic year’s work. The aim of the engineering internship is to give students knowledge about and understanding of practical conditions and methods, processes and engineering functions in a company, so that students can see these in relation to their engineering course and to their subsequent work as qualified engineers.
The internship is described in more detail in the Internship Concept (Syddansk Universitets praktikkoncept for diplomingeniøruddannelser), which is based on the Ministerial order on the Bachelor of Engineering Programmes no 1160 of 07/09/2016, as amended by The Ministerial order no 1581 of 06/11/2020.
Description of aims for internships
The engineering internship aims to contribute to:
- Developing the students’ creativity, independence and ability to collaborate
- Increasing students’ competence in transforming the course’s theoretical core areas into projects feasible in practice
- Increasing students’ competence in performing tasks requiring acquisition of new knowledge for the completion of Projects
- Developing an understanding of a company’s organisational, economic, social and working practices
- Creating an insight into a company’s social and administrative environment (communication and collaboration between staff at various levels, rules and administrative routines)
- Developing competences in presenting working results both orally and in writing in forums at a variety of levels.
The preparation of the engineering internship
The engineering internship should be carried out in a public or private company in Denmark or abroad. The company must be able to offer internship tasks with a work content that is relevant for the individual student’s course.
Working with the University of Southern Denmark, students find their internship placement and establish a written agreement (internship contract) between SDU, the internship company and the student. With the internship, the student prepares an activity plan for the internship period. During the internship, the student will comply with the company’s normal working hours and other rules and agreements applicable to the company’s staff.
During their internship, students are allocated an internship supervisor at their course centre, whose overall task is to ensure the academic quality on the internship. The supervisor should, therefore, ensure that the student attains the best possible learning during the internship period. This means that the supervisor supports the student’s opportunities and capacity to engage in reflection and thereby to see the internship in relation to the course and the engineering profession.
Timing
The engineering internship is normally completed in the 6th semester of the course. In the spring semester, this takes place between 1st February and 31st August, in the autumn semester between 1st July and 31st January.
Evaluation
At the conclusion of the internship the student prepares a report. The report should be submitted to the student’s internship supervisor no later than 8th February (spring semester internship) or 11th August (autumn semester internship). In the case of internships abroad funded by EU, the date of submission can, if necessary, be changed.
The internship is assessed as passed/failed on the basis of the completed internship and the student's report.
The report can be assessed:
- passed
- passed with certain shortcomings that should be made good
- not passed, which means the report should be completely rewritten.
In the last two instances the student has 7 days to make the required additions/corrections, which may mean completely rewriting and presenting the new version for assessment.
For further information about the engineering internship, see University of Southern Denmark’s internship concept.