Project-oriented Study (Internship)

The contents of the course are:

15 ECTS

• A Project-oriented study in a private/public company, an association or an NGO. 
• The student is responsible for making contact to the organization in which the project-oriented studies take place. Schedule for the working days/hours is made in agreement between the student and the organization/company. The project-oriented studies can take place in a public or a private company / organization.
• 15 ECTS is equivalent to approx. 405 hours of work. During this time, there must be time available to prepare a report. 
• 320 hours are set aside for solving the agreed problems in the organization for the 15 ECTS course.
• Writing up a report 15 to 20 pages (according to the course description) which must adhere to common academic standards. The remaining 85 hours (for 15 ECTS, respectively) are set aside for this including supervision. 

20 ECTS

• A Project-oriented study in a private/public company, an association or an NGO. 
• The student is responsible for making contact to the organization in which the project-oriented studies take place. Schedule for the working days/hours is made in agreement between the student and the organization/company. The project-oriented studies can take place in a public or a private company / organization. 
• 20 ECTS is equivalent to approx. 540 hours of work. During this time, there must be time available to prepare a report. 
• 440 hours are set aside for solving the agreed problems in the organization for the 20 ECTS course.
• Writing up a report 20 to 25 pages (according to the course description) which must adhere to common academic standards. The remaining 100 hours (for 20 ECTS, respectively) are set aside for this including supervision. 

• The project-oriented study must be related to the contents of your MSc in Environmental and Resource Management. Further, the work to be performed during the project-oriented study must consist of appropriate tasks, i.e. mainly tasks that will allow you to apply theories and methods learnt during the programme and write up an academic report about the problem-solving process.

• The Project-oriented study should contain these main elements:

• Solution of one or more specific problem(s) decided by the student in collaboration with the company and a supervisor from SDU.

• The content of the project must be related to the area of environmental and resource management in a broad sense but within the MSc program profile. Thus, the bulk of the work performed during the internship should have a specific academic content related with the project and not only include general office work or similar functions unrelated to the aim of the project-oriented study.

• The student may receive SU during the study. Companies and organizations can give students in unprofitable project-oriented courses and on unpaid study stays an acknowledgment of up to DKK 3,483 a month (2024-level). If repayment/reimbursement is received, it is the student’s responsibility to ensure, whether it is taxable or not. 

You seek out an organization where you would like to stay for a project-oriented study. If possible, you then agree on possible tasks to solve and period as well as schedule for the stay. You may get ideas for organizations and tasks from looking into the job bank at SDU - Find info on SDUCareer
SDU Business is on Campus Esbjerg and students are welcome to contact our local Business Consultant Lars Vad, e-mail lava@sdu.dk or telephone + 45 6510 1079.

Lars can help you to get in contact with the corporate world regarding student jobs, project-oriented studys and projects.
Once you have a fairly clear picture of the tasks that you expect to work with, you need to prepare a preliminary project description including concrete and specific ideas about the focus of the project, suggested methods to be used, relevant literature as well as an outline of which compulsory courses and topics (the competencies) you expect to use during the project-oriented study.

There is supervision connected to the Project-oriented study. To get a supervisor, you must use the link to the digital form given above. First, to get the approval from the course responsible, you need to enter your preliminary project description into the form. You should be able to account for which methods, you expect to use, which literature, and which of your compulsory courses, you expect to build on.

If the course responsible find that the content of the project is suitable for a Project-oriented study, you will be assigned a supervisor. 

You must fill in the form before the deadline. However, we recommend that you fill in the form as early as possible. Notice that it can easily take 14 days to find a supervisor. 

What about approval of the contents of the project-oriented study?
Your supervisor must approve the contents and the goal for the project report before the deadline. This is a requirement for submission of the report for the exam. To get approval on time, you must, as soon as possible, contact your supervisor and discuss your project proposal with him or her.
For approval, you need to add information to the same form that you used for requesting a supervisor.
The agreement that you upload must as a minimum contain the following information:

A.
Information about the Company/Organization. You can use the following agreement form. You must give the following information as a minimum:

• Name of organization/company at which the project-oriented study takes place
• Name and title of contact person at the study site
• Period for project-oriented study
• Working hours per week
• Description of the work content of the project-oriented study

B. 
A preliminary project description including.

• concrete and specific ideas about the focus of the project,
• suggested methods to be used
• relevant literature
• an explicit outline the compulsory courses and the topics (the competencies) that you expect to be use during the project-oriented study.

Registration is done via the Student Self Service (SPOC) as for other courses.

1. To find a company or another organization for the project- and trainee period and agree on tasks to be solved.
2. To fill in the digital form and get approval of the project from the course responsible before the deadline: 
   • 15 August (autumn)
3. To get the supervisor agreement approved (via the same digital form) before the deadline.
   • 1 October (autumn)
4. To hand in a report before the deadline.
   
   • Find information in the exam plan