Industrial Internship educational goals & self-reflection

1. Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Industrial Internshipeducational goals & self-reflection Jetse Reijenga & Esther Vinken Proceedings 20th ICCE LOST overleg 12 november 2009 j.c.reijenga@tue.nl

2. Industrial Internship • Compulsory for Master’s degree • 3-6 months (fulltime, 20-30 ects) • Industrial R&D or Production • In the Netherlands or abroad (40/60) • Before or after graduation (now 10/90) • Technical Report • Company Grading Form • Final Presentation at TU/e • Self- Reflection Report

3. Educational Goals • Orientation on the chemical engineering profession & labor market and acquiring a position • Gain experience in working as a chemical engineer in industrial working environment; • Solve problems on a chemical engineering level, and thus integrating and expanding knowledge, technical insight, skills  and critical inventiveness • Practice communication in a professional working environment. http://edu.chem.tue.nl/goals

4. Phasing of Internship • Orientation: register, intake internview, CV, motivation letter, previous projects, current offers, company contacts, internship programs • Preparation: permission for subject, time frame, contract, supervision, reporting, confidentiality, work permit, scholarships, travel, insurance, briefing before departure • During Internship: contact details, subject update, visit or conference call, interim grading, reporting • Afterwards: debriefing, company grading form, report, reflection report, trial presentation, presentation, evaluation, final grade http://edu.chem.tue.nl/6Z001

5. Company Grading Form, version 1

6. Self-Reflection Report – group #1 • Guideline: “make a 500-word self-reflection report in view of general educational goals of the internship”. Report treated confidential. • Resulting reports were “insufficient” more about the company profile and the assignment than about themselves.

7. Self-Reflection Report – group #2 Guidelines: write a 500 word self-reflection report taking into account the following points: • What did you learn about yourself? • Did you discover unsuspected talents? • Did you meet unexpected challenges? • How did you deal with them • Which personal improvement points remain? • How did internship broaden your view on career opportunities? • Self reflection should not be about the company, but about you.

8. Self-Reflection Report – group #3 Guidelines (in addition to those of group #2) • Student fills in company grading form for himself, before the internship • Again halfway through the internship • Again at the end of the internship • Compare 3 self-grade forms with company grading form as an additional aid in self-reflection

9. Comparison of groups Quality of Self-reflection reports Group size 19, 44 and 36 respectively

10. Results of group #3 in detail

11. Conclusions • Extended guidelines improve self-reflection reports • Additional self-grading further improves reports • Even in group #3, only 50% of students make acceptable self-reflections, so: • Further improvement still needed. J.C. Reijenga, E. Vinken, in Chemistry Education in the ICT Age; Springer Education, Book Chapter ISBN 978-1-4020-9731-7 (2009)

12. Recommendations (2008 -> 2010) • Further emphasize self-grading • Personal goals as SMART objectives?? • New grading form

13. my bottom line……… self-reflection as starting basis for a bright career perspective

14. Industrial Internship, where? + 35 NL companies with 1 student each

15. Industrial Internship, where then?

16. Industrial Internship, where now?

17. My other challenges………….. • Assessing exemptions for Internship • Explaining self-reflection and pear review for different cultures • CV advice: from fun-CVs to nerd-CVs • Motivation letter: from touristic side activities to hard-core science & technology • Help translate “what I don’t want” into “what can I do” or “what I want” • Facilitate conversion of students into professional employees • Estimate how much help students need

18. Industrial Internship, a dialogue