Overview: If you are majoring in Advertising and Public Relations (ADPR), Communication and Media Studies (CMS), Communication and Speech Studies (CSS) or Journalism (JOU), you can take an internship for credit by registering for COM 354: Internship in Communication. This guide explains the process and constitutes the syllabus and policies for the COM 354 course.
Credits and Requirements: To complete an internship for credit, you must have junior or senior standing (at least 60 hours completed at the time of registration) and a minimum 3.0 GPA. You must work 40 hours per academic credit hour. Over the course of a 14-week semester, this works out to approximately one credit = three hrs/week, two credits = six hrs/week, three credits = nine hrs/week, and four credits = 12 hrs/week. For a seven-week term, those hours would be doubled (one credit = six hrs/week, etc). Please note that these are minimum hourly requirements. For instance, you may opt to register for two credits even if you plan to work more than six hours per week during a 14-week semester.
Terms and Registration Deadlines: You can take COM 354 during the school year as either a 14-week, first seven weeks, or second seven weeks class during the fall and spring semesters. You can also take COM 354 over the summer for the full 12-week term or just the first or second six weeks. The registration deadlines vary. For fall, spring and summer (12 weeks), you must register within the first three weeks of the semester. For first and second seven weeks, registration takes place during the first week of the term. And, for summer first and second six weeks, you must register within the first three days of the term. Once you submit your Internship Agreement Form (IAF) by following the process laid out below, the registration process typically takes three to to five business days. But please be aware that it is your responsibility to confirm that the internship actually shows up on your schedule; if you don’t see COM 354, you will not get credit for it. Also, note that you will be charged summer tuition rates for internships taken over the summer and that retroactive credit is not possible.
Major Restrictions: Majors in advertising and public relations (ADPR general and public relations concentrations), communication and media studies (CMS), communication and speech studies (CSS) and journalism (JOU), can count up to four credit hours of COM 354 towards their major and any additional internship credits toward general electives. JOU majors can take COM 354 for a maximum of eight credit hours, four of which may count toward their major. CSS majors should see their program director for approval.
Grading and Assignments: Remember that taking an internship for credit is like taking a class. The only difference is that most of the work takes place off-campus, and the grading is pass/fail ("satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory"). In other words, yes, you can fail an internship. Your grade will be based on: 1) orientation (10%): 2) your attendance at (and one-page reflection about) a Career Services event, appointment, or drop-in (10%); 3) your midterm report (20%); 4) your final report (30%) and 5) your internship host site supervisor’s evaluation (30%). Final percentages of 60% or higher earn a "satisfactory" grade while final percentages of 59% or lower earn an "unsatisfactory" grade. If you do not submit either your final report or your site supervisor’s evaluation by the last day of classes of your internship's term, you will automatically receive a grade of "unsatisfactory." Should you wish to request an extension or "incomplete," it is up to you to propose an alternative arrangement before the last day or your internship's term.
Fair Labor Standards for Unpaid Internships: Like an apprenticeship, an unpaid internship should be an educational experience that benefits you more than the host site. This is why the United States Department of Labor requires host sites to assign unpaid interns a range of interesting and challenging tasks, teach them transferable skills that can be applied in other contexts and provide them with oversight and feedback based on helping students to establish and achieve their learning objectives. If this is not taking place at your internship, please contact Christopher Boulton, the faculty internship coordinator for the Department of Communication. Your host site may need to either pay you for your work or increase the educational value of the experience. In any case, you may want to refer them to Career Services' very helpful Employer Internship Guide.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOUR INTERNSHIP:
Find an Internship: To find an internship, start by reading over Career Services' very helpful Student Internship Guide. You can also peruse the list of over 100 local internship sites that have hosted UTampa students or use your personal/professional network of contacts to approach a potential internship site on your own. Please note that, in order for the experience to be approved for academic credit through COM 354, it will neeed to be 1) relevant to your major and 2) similar to an apprenticeship where there is a master of a trade who has the experience/credentials/expertise to teach you new skills. For instance, a company that does not specialize in social media asking you to create content or manage their Instagram is not an internship; that's a job. And while you are certainly free to volunteer for experiences like that, they will not be approved for academic credit. Once you are hired for a relevant internship where an expert will train you in new skills, proceed to the next step.
Request Academic Credit:
To request academic credit for your internship, please follow the steps below..
Contact Christina Bevilacqua (cbevilacqua@ut.edu) in the Office of Career Services for detailed application instructions either via an Internship Credit Drop-in (available during the school year on Tuesdays from 2-3:45pm) or by making an "Internship Credit Eligibility" appointment through SpartanHIRE.
Add your “New Experience” on SpartanHIRE. Complete the student survey. Then, click “Save” and “Submit.” (Do NOT click “Submit for Approval” yet)
Complete the "Internship Agreement Form” (IAF) and send your host site supervisor the "Employer Internship Request Form” (IRF) through SpartanHIRE.
Monitor your request on SpartanHIRE.
Once you see that both forms are complete, click “Submit for Approval.” Your request will go to your Faculty Internship Coordinator first, followed by the Registrar’s Office.
Monitor SpartanHIRE and your UTampa email so you can respond promptly to any requests for additional information.
Once your request is approved for academic credit by your Faculty Internship Coordinator and the Registrar’s Office, allow 3–5 business days for the Registrar’s Office to enroll you in the internship course in Workday. You cannot self-register, but do be sure to check to confirm that the internship appears on your schedule. Also note that you must have space in your schedule in order for the registration to go through. If you already have 16 credits, you might consider a two-credit internship so you don't have to petition for an overload (more than 18 credits).
- If you are an international student, be advised that CPTs are no longer available for COM 354 due to recent federal regulation changes. If you have any questions about this, please reach out to the International Programs Office (IPO): https://www.ut.edu/international-programs/ipo-contact-information
WHAT TO DO DURING YOUR INTERNSHIP:
Get Started: As part of this course, you will need to attend one orientation session either in-person or virtually. The instructor will offer multiple sessions and will post the times and sign-up lists on SpartanLearn. On the first day of your internship, find out who will be supervising or managing you, then request a time to sit down with them to establish your weekly work schedule and a set of specific learning objectives that you hope to accomplish over the course of the internship. Finally, do your best to set up a reliable mechanism of evaluation, preferably in the form of regular feedback from your internship site supervisor. This is important because in order to accomplish your learning objectives you will need a continuing process of on-site evaluation. You should also keep an ongoing journal throughout your internship, so you will have plenty of material at-the-ready when it comes time to write your midterm and final reports.
Be Professional: An internship is an exercise in pre-professional training. Therefore, you should plan to always be on time and strive to be a reliable, dedicated and ethical colleague. Maintain a positive attitude and willingness to learn while completing all of your tasks and responsibilities to the best of your ability. Remember, you are not just representing yourself; you are also representing UTampa. Of course, it is also incumbent on your internship host site to provide a safe, professional and ethical environment for you and your work. In any case, if any problems arise, please contact me right away. The instructor is on your side and will work to help you resolve any issues or, should the need arise, reassign you to a more healthy and productive work environment.
Midterm Report: Halfway through your internship you will need to submit on SpartanLearn a one to two page midterm report of your internship experience thus far. This report should provide specific examples and address the following five areas:
- the company’s founding, mission statement, product, clients/customers and number of employees and departments;
- your internship duties/responsibilities, the kinds of projects you are working on and people you are working with;
- any skills or insights gained relevant to your learning objectives and major and/or career goals;
- problems or challenges you’ve had and what you’ve done to solve them; and
- the amount and quality of supervision, feedback and evaluation you are getting from your site supervisor.
Career Services: At least two weeks before the end of your internship, you must attend either a Career Services event of your choice, appointment or drop-in session. For example, should you choose to schedule an appointment or drop-in, you could request whichever of the following topics is most relevant to your individual needs: resume/cover letter, career exploration, internships, job search strategies, leveraging LinkedIn or interviewing assistance. To complete this assignment, turn in a one to two page, double-spaced reflection paper on SpartanLearn that summarizes the information gleaned from the Career Services event, appointment or drop-in session and describes, in detail, what future steps you plan to take based on what you learned.
Final Report: At the end of your internship or during the last week of the term (whichever comes first), you will need to complete the Final Report (Student) Qualtrics Survey linked through SpartanLearn in order to receive academic credit for your experience.
Internship Evaluation: Towards the end of your internship, you will need to send your internship site supervisor the Internship Evaluation (Employer) Qualtrics Survey. Be sure they complete it before the last day of your internship's term so you can earn academic credit for the experience. Some of the questions include the following:
- How many total hours did the intern work?
- What were the intern’s major accomplishments in terms of projects completed and/or goals reached?
- Which of their learning objectives were achieved and how?
- What were the biggest challenges the intern faced, and how did the intern overcome them?
- What did you teach the intern (equipment/software, teamwork, specialized vocabulary, etc.) that intern didn't already know?
- How might The University of Tampa better prepare our students to be successful interns?
Other course policies: Please note that UTampa’s campus-wide policy statements also apply to this course.
