Instructor/Advisor Virginia Montecino
New Century College, Enterprise Hall 4th Floor 
E-mail: montecin@gmu.edu
Web: http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin

Internship Information

To all students I am supervising for Internships: 

Please be sure you register for your internship, before the add/drop period is over, using the call number for 4GMU you were sent by the Internship Coordinator.

If you have not signed your contract, you need to do so immediately and give it to me and give a copy to the Internship Coordinator in New Century College. We may have to work together to revise and refine your contrac

I hope your internship will be very rewarding.  Remember that you will have to balance your schoolwork and your internship responsibilities.  You should have a successful if you follow the guideines below.

I will be grading your internship work, plus portfolio, not your internship supervisor at the company. I will be looking at your experience from the academic perspective - your learning experience.  Remember that your internship, if successfully completed, will earn for you college credits.  The focus for your journal, essay, and portfolio should be on what you learned from doing the internship - not just skills, but competencies and multi-disciplinary knowledge. The evaluation by your supervisor at the place of work only counts for a small percentage of your grade.

Please review the New Century College  NCC internship guidelines (http://www.ncc.gmu.edu/internships.html) and my guidelines below. You must adhere to the NCC Internship guidelines and also my requirements in order to fulfill your internship responsibilities. 

As you get more involved in your internship, your goals and objectives and tasks may change somewhat.  You and I need to concur about these objectives. Planning ahead is important. Any changes in your objectives, tasks, and learning experiences (the most important part) should be documented in your journal entries and portfolio. 

Feel free to contact me at any and all stages of the process. 

You will turn in your portfolio to me at the end of the internship on an agreed upon date, sufficiently early to allow me to read and evaluate it before grades have to be turned in. 

 I have my own requirements (glossary, posting journal entries in townhall, exit interview) in addition to the Internship program procedures and guidelines. 

It is important to print out and refer to the "... guidelines for the Internship Portfolio" (http://www.ncc.gmu.edu/internshippro.html) to see the detailed descriptions of requirements and to be sure you fulfill all aspects of this internship. 

• Binder - on outside front cover and spine: name, semester, internship site
• Title Page 
• Table of Contents
• Introductory essay (2-3 pages)
• Internship Job Description
• Organization Description and other materials
• Internship Contract (your learning plan)
• Documentation of Learning
• Time sheet
• Samples of Internship work, affirmations, honors
• Assignments completed for faculty sponsor (glossary, journals in townhall, end of internship interview)
• Sample Cover Letter
• Revised Resume (Resume guidelines: http://classweb.gmu.edu/nccwg/cov-resume.htm)
• Reflective essay (7-10 pages)
• Internship Placement Site Assessment (see attached form in Internship packet)
• Complete collection of learning logs. Post in http://townhall.gmu.edu - faculty requirement (must include print copies of townhall journal entries in final portfolio)
• Glossary - faculty requirement - (in alphabetical order and to be included in your portfolio) of terms related to your internship experience. This glossary will help me have conversations with you about your internship and, most important, will help you better understand the culture of the organization and the language/terms related to your internship. This glossary will also help give you the language to discuss your internship in your journal and portfolio. (Some companies find this so helpful that they have the interns create a copy of the glossary for the company.)
• Annotated bibliography - MLA or APA style, of the documentation and texts you use in performing your duties. Make the annotations relevant to your internship. Annotations are brief summaries of what the text/URL is about. In this context, explain why the readings, documentation, how-to guides are helpful to you in successfully accomplishing your internship responsibilities. (Documentation guidelines: http://classweb.gmu.edu/nccwg/researchdocument.htm)
• End of Internship Interview - faculty requirement. Meet with me at the end of your internship, at an agreed upon time, to turn in your portfolio and discuss the learning experience. 

Submit learning objectives at beginning of semester and revise if needed 

• Regularly check your mason MEMO e-mail account for messages from me. We are required to have you send us e-mail from your gmu memo account and we must respond from our gmu memo accounts. Respond in a timely fashion to my e-mail inquiries and submit log entries on time (We will agree upon a method to submit journal entries, either e-mail or web-forum.) 

• Keep up with your progress reports/journal entries in townhall (http://townhall.gmu.edu). Every week post 2 pages.  If every two weeks, 4 pages (Post in http://townhall.gmu.edu, our private, web-based private forum.)  I will give you the exact title of the forum). Compose these journal entries off-line and copy and paste into the townhall forum discussion "window" so you will be able to edit them before you post them and also have copies to print out. These progress reports/journals should be printed out and put in your final portfolio. Include such items as what training you are undergoing; what tasks you are assigned; what meetings you attend; what struggles you are having and how you are working things out and learning from them; how your role fits in with the company's mission; if you have a mentor and how that relationship is workout out. What are you learning frm your mentor? 

• Evaluation reports from your supervisor - mid semester and near the end of the semester (This is usually solicited from the Internship office.) 

• Refer to the ongoing journal entries in townhall or your print copies for material to help you prepare your portfolio.

• Gather samples of your work throughout the process, if possible (some company business is confidential, so ask first if you can share the information with only me).  If the work is on the Web include accurate URLs (Web addresses.)  Write reflections about the work samples (What did you learn and how did this work benefit the company?) 

• Read information and documentation related to your work (include in your glossary) - for example, company policies related to your internship, company manuals, documentation of technology applications, information related to company ethics and procedures (that are not private), and resources pertinent to your internship.  For example, if you are doing Web work, find good material on copyright and privacy issues.)

• Become familiar with your The Successful Internship text. I expect you to incorporate, where relevant, material from the text that relates to your internship experience.  Paraphrase and quote relevant passages, citing the source and page number. 

(1) Journal entries - 35% 
Submitted thoughtful, reflective entries in a timely fashion  (minimum acceptable number: 8 - 2 page entries; for consideration for full credit, you need to submit 12- 2 page entries) 

(2) Portfolio - 30% 
(NCC internship requirements) Must be submitted on time. See the Internship Application Packet for guidelines with detailed descriptions for the Internship Portfolio: http://www.ncc.gmu.edu/internshippro.html, for the specific portfolio requirements, which include the 2-3 page introductory essay, the 7 - 10 page reflective essay, a resume, and other components. The guidelines in the Internship packet do not include those required by me. 

A satisfactory portfolio is thorough, reflective, thoughtful, and gives a clear picture of what you have learned. Visual aspects of a portfolio are not unimportant, but the major point is reflection and analysis. The portfolio should communicate learning.  Include copies of your work.  Include any relevant URLs if you are doing Web work.  Explain all entries. What you did; what you learned (most important) and how you can use these skills in your other pursuits, academic and/or work related. It should be more than just a  "scrapbook" of everything you did. 

(3) Annotated Bibliography - 15%
Include at least 10 documents/texts that relate to your internship description and tasks.  You must include chapters from your Successful Internship text. The others choices can include books on the subject of your internship, "how-to" documents, non classified company policy, such as information on copyright, job expectations guidelines, etc. Some library research may be required to meet the objectives.  You must also annotate your bibliography entries (Annotate means to write a short summary of the reading/document. Also include a brief entry about how this reading relates to your internship and why it was useful for your goals for this internship 

(4) Glossary of terms - 10%
Create your own alphabetical list of terms and definitions of those terms related to your internship responsibilities and the field, in general. Include the sources of the definitions. 

(5) Satisfactory report from on-site supervisor -10%