Guidelines for Internship Oceans and lakes
Introduction
The aim of the Internship course is to get acquainted with the professional field of an aquatic scientist (marine or lacustrine). Therefore you have to work about 3 weeks - i.e. 90 hours (5 ECTS), or 7 weeks - i.e. 210 hours (11 ECTS) in an institute, company, organization or research group with marine or lacustrine related activities. The activities you will be doing should not necessarily be focused on specific objectives but could cover a variety of tasks, which are part of the daily activities of scientists in the organization. In some cases they are related to a particular research project, but not always.
Start preparing in time (1 month before the actual start to have all paperwork done in time). The actual internship should fit into your time schedule of the second MSc year, so likely the internship is not on a continuous base but spread over several weeks/months. They can also take place during the summer months before or after the 2nd MSc year.
We use the online platofmr MaTiX (http://matix.chromis.be/OandL/) to manage the practicalities of your internships.
Procedure
Step 1: Identify an organization for your internship. Internships can take place in different kinds of organization where activities related to marine or lacustrine science take place (from policy, to outreach, education, research,.. etc). You cannot perform your internship in the same organization/group as you plan to perform your thesis. Once you have identified a place of interest, enter the name and website of the organization through the button on your dashboard (at https://matix.marinetraining.eu/OandL/dashboard) to inform us
Step 2: When you receive approval of your internship choice you can contact the internship provider to discuss the possibilities and time frame. You will need to provide further details to be able to generate the agreement online, get the signature from your trainee or internship provider and sign yourself. Once you have uploaded a scan of this signed document on the Matix platform, the dean will sign.
Once you have started the internship you have to upload on a weekly basis a time sheet showing per hour what you have been doing.
Reporting
Once you have finished your internship, you prepare an activity report between 5-10 pages introducing the place/institute/organisation you were working, and explaining the framework and the type of your activities.
You do NOT have to write a scientific report showing results, but in case you have been collecting data you can add an overview of the kind of data you have collected and the methodology.
Evaluation
The evaluation of your internship will be based on your attitude (feedback by mentor), your effort (time sheet) and the quality of your report.