Work placement (Internship)

There are several ways of finding an internship but below we have listed some options.

• You can check SDU’s job database under projects and internships here.
• Some internships will be posted in your Facebook group 
• You can check out the MOISL Internship Database, where previous students have shared valuable insights and information about their internships. You can find this database on itslearning under MOISL study. 
• Find a workplace on your own. You can do an internship in Denmark or abroad in a wide range of workplaces, such as a public institution, a civil society group, a private company or a private foundation.

Note the deadlines May 20-30 or November 20-30

• Sign up for the Work Placement course (10 or 20 ECTS) on Student Self Service.  
• You may not yet have found a workplace or arranged an internship at this time, but you still need to register for the course. If you are not able to find an internship before the deadline, you can get signed up for electives instead. 

Contact any of your SDU proffessors and ask if the person would like to be your supervisor. Most internship places will name one of their staff members as a supervisor, who serves as your primary contact during the work placement. In addition, you will have an academic supervisor from your SDU programme, who you can contact to discuss the academic content of your internship, the final internship report, as well as other substantive issues related to your internship. 

• The internship agreement is the contract provided by the employer. If your employer is not able to provide a contract, you can contact the Academic Student Advisor, who will be able to provide a template. 
• The agreement needs to entail 1) a description of the internship tasks, and 2) contact details of the person responsible from the host institution. It is also strongly recommended to include a short explanatory note justifying the choice of the internship and its relevance, since this can be helpful, if it is unclear to the programme corrdinator how the internship is relevant for your education. Keep in mind, the relevancy might seem obvious to you, but the coordinator may not agree. In such cases, including a note can be helpful for your case. 

Deadline September 1 or February 1

Spoc can be found here

• Fill out the name, email and department of your SDU supervisor
• Mark whether you will be doing a 10 or 20 ECTS internship
• Upload the Internship Agreement
• Write a preliminary problem statement which broadly reflects the link between the internship and your academic study programme. The problem statement is an indication of what you would like to write your internship assignment on, but it is not binding. 

You have different options to obtain the remaining ECTS

• You can take an extra course while you are doing your internship – this could for example be the written assignment for 5 ECTS, which does not include any additional teaching or exams besides the written assignment on a topic of your choice. You can find the course description here. 
• You can compensate by “overloading” and accumulating additional ECTS points during your 1st, 2nd or 4th semester by taking an extra course. 
• You can take an extra course during the summer.

You can take courses that your program is offering, or you can take courses from other programs both at SDU or other universities. If you want to take courses from other programs or universities, you will need to apply to get the course pre-approved by the Study Board. Here it matters whether you have taken similar courses at SDU, whether the proposed or a similar course also is offered at SDU, and whether the proposed course fits into the profile of your SDU programme. Keep in mind that other universities have their own deadlines. 

You can find a list of approved courses for your programme here

You can discuss these options with the Academic Student Advisor or one of your professors. 

If you are not successful in finding an internship before the beginning of the semester (September 1 or February 1), you can get signed up for electives by emailing the Study Board through SPOC.

If you would like to do an internship abroad, you can get help from SDU International to apply for either an Erasmus+ grant or a grant from the Internationalization Fund. You can read more about the possibilities on their page. 

Paid internships are generally not accepted, but there are exceptions. Contact SDU International for specific guidance on the internship you are interested in. Though you are not generally allowed to receive a salary for your internship, financial compensation of living expenses (erkendtlighed) is allowed.

You can ask SDU International any further questions about this as well. 

Yes. Your internship needs to be relevant to your degree, so if this is not the case, there is a possibility that it might not be approved. There is also a possibility that it will not be approved if it goes against the rules on paid internships. If you are uncertain whether an internship is relevant to your degree, you can go through the internship database for your programme, or ask one of your professors for their opinion. It is not ultimately their decision, but they can help guide you in the right direction. 

At SDU, you can only receive 10 or 20 ECTS points for an internship. You will therefore have to decide how to obtain the remaining ECTS points by taking electives, while doing your internship, during one of the other semesters or during the summer. If you would like to discuss your options, you can contact your Academic Student Advisor. 

No. You cannot enroll in the same course twice, so this is not possible. 

As previously mentioned, if you are not interested in the elective courses that are offered by your programme, you have the option to follow other courses at either SDU or other universities. In either case, you need to do your own research to find these courses, and you need to use your own judgement to determine whether they seem relevant to your programme. With the exception of the courses that are already offered by your programme, there is no list of other relevant courses at either SDU or other universities. In order to take these courses, you need to apply for pre-approval/forhåndsmerit through SPOC, and the study board will then decide if the courses are relevant to your programme. As they might not approve every course, you can apply for twice as many ECTS as you need. You can contact your Academic Student Advisor if you have any further questions.

Some students are not able to take an internship, for example due personal reasons or illness. Others will not be able to find an internship on time, and some simply will not be interested in this option. Some students feel a lot of pressure to do an internship, because they are under the impression that they will be unemployable once they graduate. If this is something you are concerned about, you can contact Rio, where they specialize in career guidance. Go to SPOC, counselling center/studievejledning, career opportunities/karrieremuligheder. If you struggle with stress or illness or have other personal problems that interfere with your studies, please contact your Academic Student Advisor. They can help you find out what your options are.  

Yes! You can read more about it here.

If you have any further questions about this, please contact SDU International. And start planning this now!