Internship
Why
Though highly recommended, curricular internships are not mandatory to complete the study program. To be approved, an internship must be a valuable experience with the purpose of complementing acquired theory with relevant practice in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship. After completing an internship, students must demonstrate to have gained new knowledge through hands-on experience in a company, organization or institution.
When
Internships have to provide students with real personal and professional enrichment. Accordingly, it is highly recommended to place this experience after the completion of the first year, in order to have acquired basic theoretical knowledge and skills to be enriched through on-the-field experience.
How
Basic requirements: To be registered in the curriculum of study, curricular internships must satisfy the requirements of coherence with the study plan, seriousness of the work program and ascertainable skill development. To get ECTS, students can register a single internship per study course. Additional internships or internships that do not satisfy the above requirements for recognition, are referred to as curricular internships without credits (if completed before graduation) or as extracurricular internships (if completed after graduation).
Duration: In order to be recognized in the curriculum of studies, an internship of 6 ECTS requires a minimum duration of about 150 hours.
Hosting institutions: Internships may be carried out in Italy or abroad, in any organized workplace.
Types: Students can either select one of the internship opportunities available at UNIMI – COSP Website (option 1) or find a stage by themselves (option 2a and 2b), please read below for further details.
Full-time working students
Students belonging to this specific category might be unable to activate an internship and attend laboratories. It is possible for them to validate the working activity as 6 credits of internship. To achieve this, they must send to the MIE Internship Referee (please check the yellow box on the right of this page):
- a copy of their employment contract (deprived of sensitive data) or a declaration by the employer including, at least, contact details of the institution/company, employee's role, tasks performed and working hours;
- the credit recognition form duly completed with a short, personal description of their job experience.
Conditions for granting assignment of credits:
- it is not possible to validate employment relationships if completed before enrolling in MIE;
- the work experience must be fairly relevant to MIE learning outcomes.
Internship guidelines for employers and students are available on the COSP page.
UNIMI Study and Career Guidance Centre (COSP) regularly provides internship offers. Interested students must follow the steps below:
- Check the available possibilities of stage at UNIMI – Placement website selecting the following choices from the drop down menus and apply:
- Announce type –> Internship
- Internship type –> Curriculare
- Degree Subject –> Economics, statistics
- In case of acceptance, the company has to prepare a stage project (progetto formativo) which is a document stating the activities to be carried out during the internship period with the indication of the dates (starting/end date). The form is available online and can be accessed by registered companies. The stage project, duly stamped by the company and signed by the company tutor has to be uploaded through the Placement website.
An e-mail will be sent to the Academic Tutor (programme stage representative) who will decide whether to activate the internship or not. The Academic Tutor will verify that the content and activities carried out during the internship are coherent and valuable. A confirmation e-mail will be sent to the student. - At the end of the internship, the company tutor and the student are both required to prepare and send by email to the Academic Tutor the end of stage report (it is composed by two forms to be filled in online then downloaded from COSP website).
- Send the Internship Credits Recognition Form to the Academic Tutor. As soon as the internship is verified, the credits will be displayed in the student’s online career.
For self-procured internships, students must go through the following steps after having found hosting institutions that can accept them as interns/trainees:
- Ask the company’s contact person to register on Placement website and activate an internship.
- The company has to prepare a stage project (progetto formativo) which is a document stating the activities to be carried out during the internship period with the indication of the dates (starting/end date). The form is available online and can be accessed by registered companies. The stage project, duly stamped by the company and signed by the company tutor has to be uploaded through the COSP website. An e-mail will be sent to the Academic Tutor (programme stage representative) who will decide whether to activate the internship or not. The Academic Tutor will verify that the content and activities carried out during the internship are coherent and valuable. A confirmation e-mail will be sent to the student.
- At the end of the internship, the company tutor and the student are both required to prepare and send by e-mail to the Academic Tutor the end of stage report (it is composed by two forms to be filled in online then downloaded from COSP website).
- Send the Internship Credits Recognition Form to the Academic Tutor. As soon as the internship is verified, the credits will be displayed in the student’s online career.
Students having found an internship opportunity abroad, have to go through the following steps at least 30 days before the expected starting date:
- Download the internship agreement form – Student Version available at "Activating an internship abroad page" on Unimi portal.
- Duly fill-in the internship agreement form with intern/trainee’s information and details of the hosting institutions and Company Tutor. The document has to be signed by both the intern and the Company tutor.
- Download and fill-in the accompanying letter (lettera tutor) available at at "Activating an internship abroad page" on Unimi portal, then send it to the Academic Tutor for approval and signature.
- Send the pdf versions of the internship agreement form, the accompanying letter and a valid student ID to convenzioni.stage@unimi.it.
- COSP – UNIMI will verify all the documents and approve the internship. A signed copy of the agreement will be sent to the student.
- At the end of the internship, the company tutor and the student are both required to prepare and send by e-mail to the Academic Tutor the internship assessment forms. (See download section on this page)
Internship assessment form – Company Tutor (to be filled in and signed by the company tutor)
Internship self-assessment form – Student (to be filled in and signed by the student). - Send the Internship Credits Recognition Form to the Academic Tutor. As soon as the internship is verified, the credits will be displayed in the student’s online career.(See download section on this page)
An internship (or traineeship) is a training experience encompassing different options:
- Students can participate in curricular internship/work placement
- Those who have completed their study programme not more than 12 months ago can do extracurricular internships/traineeships.
The Cosp manages setup procedures for internships in public and private companies and institutions aimed at enrolled students, graduands and postgraduates.
How to find a stage opportunity
Students can either select one of the available internship positions on the University noticeboard or find an internship by themselves.
In any case they must follow procedures established by the Study and Career Guidance Centre (COSP).