How to get credit for your internship

We encourage students to do an industry internship to gain experience before graduating. Internships can be taking during the semester or during the summer. If your internship meets certain requirements, you can get up to 3 units of academic credit. To be eligible for academic credit, students must take the following steps:

• Get approval from your faculty advisor
• Register for CPE 494/694 or CS 494/694
• Work at least 80 hours per unit of credit

You cannot receive internship credit for work you have already completed.

You are also required to comply with the internship policies listed below.

Prior to your internship

At least four to six weeks prior to classes or the summer starts, you should do the following:

• Seek out a faculty member to be the Instructor of Record for your internship
• The faculty member will make a preliminary determination on the validity of the internship for credit. If the faculty member believes upon preliminary discussion that the experience may be acceptable, she or he will ask you to submit a signed letter from the internship site supervisor on company letterhead with the following information: 
  • Who the supervisor will be
  • When, where and how much you will work
  • What your primary responsibilities will be
  • A commitment to send the faculty advisor an evaluation at the end of the semester that states whether your job performance was 'satisfactory' or 'unsatisfactory'
  • Contact information
• The faculty member will make the final determination of the academic quality of the experience and if approved will refer you to Joseph Bozsik (jbozsik@unr.edu) for completion of your paperwork
  
  • In the referral via email sent to Mr. Bozsik, the following information must be included:
  • Student's name
  • Email address
  • Company name
  • Class in which the student is enrolling (i.e. CS 494/694 or CPE 494/694)
  • Number of credits the student is taking
• Mr. Bozsik will complete the following forms with you:
  • Student Learning Agreement
  • Waiver, Release, and Indemnification Agreement

You will also be required to take a sexual harassment training provided by the University.

Before you will be permitted to enroll in your internship credit(s), your internship employer will need to sign an Organizational Agreement, provide a copy of their certificate of general liability insurance, and complete an internship site assessment.

Once Mr. Bozsik has sent the faculty member a confirmation email, the faculty member will give approval for you to register for the internship credit.

For more information on engineering internships, see the College of Engineering internship page. 

During your internship

You must notify your faculty supervisor immediately if any of the following happen:

• You find the work environment unsatisfactory
• Your workplace supervisor finds your performance unsatisfactory
• Your workplace supervisor needs to change for any reason

We also recommend that you maintain a weekly log for your final report. Your log could include:

• What you did that week
• Anything that surprised you
• Anything non-trivial that you learned
• Any higher-order concepts from your coursework that you applied
• Any suggestions you made and what response they received

Evaluation of performance

No later than the first Friday of finals week or two weeks before the Fall classes start (for summer internship), your workplace supervisor must submit a signed evaluation, emailed directly to your faculty advisor and written on company letterhead. The evaluation must rate your internship performance as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

By that same date,  you must also submit a report summarizing your internship experience. The report, using 11-point font, is typically at least three pages. Your report should include:

• Overview
• Description of your official responsibilities
• Description of what you actually did
• Description of concepts and elements from the CSE curriculum you applied during your internship
• Summary of what you learned
• Summary of what parts of the internship you were not prepared for
• Critical evaluation of how the employer runs the operations you were involved in
• Suggestions for future interns with similar responsibilities with that employer or others
• Conclusion