PRESENTATIONS OF INTERNSHIP AND COOP STUDENTS

In order to attract more students to internship and coop programs, we have recently revised the internship and coop policies so that there will be more faculty-student interaction during student’s sessions in industry. While the coop program has more formal requirements in terms of commitment to a company, internship program is more flexible. Students in coop program are expected to work for three alternating sessions (semesters) in the same company. On the other hand, each internship session may be in different companies approved by the department. Students sign up for one-credit ME I184 Career Enrichment Internship or ME C184 Cooperative Education Practice for internship and coop, respectively, for the first session, and then ME I284 or ME C284 for the second session, etc.

The recent changes made to provide more exposure and prestige to the programs were:
Counting each successful internship or coop session (one semester) as one credit hour of ME elective.
Requiring faculty advisor approval for acceptance to the program, and pass and fail system depending on the completion of session with a comprehensive report.
Requiring faculty advisor supervision during each session in order to increase student interaction with advisors and department interaction with industry.
Requiring students to give a presentation to fellow students and faculty after the completion of internship or coop session. These presentations are also used as a recruiting tool to attract more students to the programs for them to gain valuable professional experience before they graduate.
Evaluation of student’s presentation by a jury of faculty members at internship presentation days organized by the department. The questions reflect the expected outcomes of these practice sessions, such as professionalism, ethics, continuing education, etc.
The following are the documents to help the presenters to prepare for presentations: