ASU College of Agriculture
Internship Program

 

The info below is the page that I maintain as the chair of the COA Internship Committee.

All internships must follow the standards stated below.
 

All internships must:

1. reflect experiences related to the individual's program of study and career goals.
2. state the competencies to be gained in the internship agreement and the experiences which will achieve those goals.
3. be supervised by an ASU, COA faculty member and by an employer representative on site.
4. consist of experiences that have not, nor can not be gained in courses at ASU, but would support the knowledge gained through courses.
5. not include activities which would be considered non-professional, entry level, repetitive tasks/busy work or grunt work.
6. include a reasonable rate of pay for the work since the intern is providing services and is seeking real life experiences.
7. set the expectation that this is a professional experience and the intern is to fulfill his/her work obligation as a professional. This would include appropriate dress, a good work ethic, mutual respect between employer and intern and a realization that this is a learning experience.

The internship agreement should be established with input from the student, employer and faculty advisor/supervisor.
 
The faculty supervisor should be knowledgeable of the area of the internship. The student's faculty advisor should recommend the faculty if necessary.

A student is eligible to participate in the Internship Program if he/she meets the following criteria:
 
1. Has completed the freshman year (28 hours)
2. Possesses and maintains a 2.5 minimum cumulative G.P.A.
    (students with a GPA less than 2.5 may submit a request making a case
     for waving the GPA deficiency)
3. Obtains approval from his/her advisor, Internships Committee and the Dean of the College of Agriculture.
 4. Is employable (i.e. demonstrates good work ethic, holds a valid work permit if not a U.S. citizen)
5. Transfer students become eligible upon completion of one full-time semester (12 hours) at ASU if all other eligibility requirements are met.
6. Develop an internship agreement that reflects the standards of the College of Agriculture.
 
All internship experiences must be approved by the Internship Committee, faculty advisor, and the dean or his designate. The internship agreement will be used by the committee to make their determination. If the internship is not approved, recommendations will be provided on what needs to be done to make this an approvable internship. If not approvable the student may continue in the internship, but without credit.
 
To accommodate the needs of the employer and/or student, a student may begin the internship experience before registration, if the internship is approved by all those involved (his/her advisor, Internships Committee and the Dean of the College of Agriculture).

No after-the-fact credit will be permitted. Students who have had experiences which might qualify as an internship may not register for internship credit after the fact. Reasoning is that no supervision was provided and internship agreement is not available to document the development of competencies or skills.
 
Interns may enroll in up to additional hours of course credit at ASU while involved in an internship (see Figure 1). Students will not be allowed to enroll in credit courses at other institutions during the time they are participating in the internship.
 
 Students will not be allowed to be employed at other jobs where paid during the time he/she is participating in the internship.
 

Each student must have a faculty supervisor. The responsibilities of the supervisor are to:

1. Represent the University and act as mediator for the employer and the student.
2. Help establish the internship agreement with special emphasis placed on the educational objectives.
3. Make sure that all appropriate University and internship procedures are followed and that all forms and reports are completed on time and kept on file.
4. Supervise the intern and employer on site and by phone and evaluate the intern (The visit would be expected of all internships except in rare occasions when the distance is too great to travel).
 5. Assign a grade. A letter grade system (A-F) will be used. The instructor has responsibility to evaluate all work and the final say in assigning grades.
 
A technical report of 6 to 12 pages will be prepared by the intern and, will be presented to the employer and the faculty supervisor at the end of the internship. This should be done on a word processor and should be professional in content and form to meet the standards of the company and University. If the technical report does not meet the standards of employer or faculty advisor, the intern may be given an opportunity to improve the report. The report will account for 60% of the grade. The report will be presented during a 30 minute debriefing "on site" with intern, faculty advisor, company supervisor, and one other company official present. Usually 5-10 minutes will be allowed for intern to give summary of technical report, 15 minutes for faculty advisor to ask substantial questions stemming from biweekly activity reports and the technical report. In circumstances in which the distant is to great for the supervisor to visit the report may be given both on site with the employer and at the University upon return of the intern. An explanation of how the report is to be conducted will be provided to the intern.

The College of Agriculture will post all internship announcements on the Internship Bulletin Board in the Agriculture Building.
 
Employers may establish contact with the CPP and have them set-up the interview or they may have the COA establish the interview process on site in the COA.
 
Faculty should not encourage a student to sign up for the interview or apply for an internship if he/she does not meet the criteria established by the employer or the university for having an internship.
 
Students must register for and pay tuition for any internship in which credit is sought. All other internships are the responsibility of the student, as per discussions with his/her advisor.

Competencies or objectives may not be included in internships if the student has already gained those competencies from some other life or work experiences.
 
Since the intern is providing services he/she should be paid at a reasonable rate for the work that he/she preforms. Non paid internships will be considered in some situations.
 
The number of hours credit received may range from 1 to 6 in any one internship. The number of hours of credit is based on the number of hours worked and the number of competencies to be gained. This model would be used to determine the number of hours of credit.
 
 FIGURE 1 Requirements Pre Credit Hour

 

EARNED HOURS CREDIT	WORK HOURS REQUIRED	OBJECTIVES	TOTAL CREDIT
1 hour	50-150**	4	15
2 hours	151-300	8	14
3 hours	301-450	12	12
4 hours	451-600	14	6
5 hours	601-750	16	6
6 hours	751 and above	18	3

 ON SITE REQUIRED HOUR LOAD 

*Load does not include internship in total. Add the hour on left column to equal total number of hours allowed each semester.
 
A student can work more hours than required to earn more money and gain more experience.

Students may apply or seek internship experiences any time of the year. The starting and ending dates of the internship will be determined by the employer and student. Students may have more than one internship experience. However, the second experience must not duplicate previous experiences. The total number of credit hours counted toward a major is limited to six. The hours will count only for agriculture electives and cannot replace required courses. The most credit a student can register for a one semester internship is four hours (three in the summer). The maximum amount of credit for which a student may register is six. The maximum number of hours of internship credit that may count toward a degree will be determined by the faculty in the major. For example, Agricultural Education may decide that three hours may be all that can be counted toward graduation credit. However, students may take more than the allowed hours by a major (if approved by advisor) for purpose of validating the experience on transcript, for future employers. If a student planned to work two semesters a maximum of 6 hours credit could be received.
 
Internships are usually initiated by the student. A student may have an interest in a given area yet there is no announced internship or position opening. The student might then locate a source of the desired experiences and then visit with employers to try to develop the internship opportunity.