Internship/Co-op Course Content Guide

Internships and related career experiences play a pivotal role in shaping the career journeys of University of Minnesota students. The value of internships extends beyond the acquisition of technical skills, as they also foster the development of career readiness competencies such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. Additionally, internships offer a unique chance for individuals to explore their chosen field, clarify career goals, and build a professional network.

The National Survey of Student Engagement designated internships as a High Impact Practice based on analyses of its data, which show that such practices are significant predictors of student learning and engagement. The potential for learning is multiplied when credit-bearing coursework supplements the experience with academic content, reflection and guidance. Course instruction that helps students understand themselves and how their curricular and co-curricular education pertains to the work world has the power to be transformative.

The purpose of this guide is to showcase the range of course practices that may enhance learning through experience, in alignment with University Policy related to academic credit for internship experiences. It is our hope that instruction within experiential education courses  may be improved through the diversity of approaches presented here. Departments are encouraged to work with their collegiate career office when designing and developing an internship course.


Aligning with University policy: credit hour

Internship courses may be offered for 1, 2, or 3 credits. Most internship courses are 1 credit, but the decision about the number of credits should be based on the academic content of a course including instructional time and student work. The time a student spends at their internship site may count toward part of the student work time standard (up to two-thirds). It is anticipated that students will spend more hours at their internship than count for course credit. The benefit students gain from their internship extends beyond earned credit (e.g. pay, experience).

Credit hour standard

1 credit courses (over 15 weeks) must include a minimum of:

  1. 50 minutes/week of instructional time/week
    1. Instructional time includes instructor-led activities (e.g. lectures, discussion facilitation). 
  2. 100 minutes/week of student work per week (⅔ (~66 minutes could be met by time at the internship site)
    1. Student work is typically made up of the time an instructor anticipates students will spend on course readings, writing assignments, exams, discussion forums, etc.

As an internship course increases in credit, the instructional hour variety of instructor-developed activities should also increase to ensure a course is meeting the credit hour standards. 


Course Modality Definitions

The University of Minnesota tracks 3 course modalities:

  • In-person
  • Online: No in-person meetings (includes asynchronous and synchronous)
  • Primarily online: Three or fewer in-person meetings per term

Course Set-up Considerations

Asynchronous courses 

Instructional time in asynchronous courses is met by video lecture and/or instructor-developed activities/engagement/learning opportunities for students.

Variable credit courses

The use of variable credit internship courses is discouraged. In rare cases when a variable credit course is needed, the syllabus needs to be clear about how the instruction and student work will scaffold for students enrolling in different numbers of credits.

Repeatable courses

When an internship course is set up as repeatable, it is important that the repeated course ensures new learning. This includes new instructional topics.


Activities to support student learning and reflection

This list is not exhaustive but rather intended to support the course development process:

Examples of activities and assignments:

  • Multimedia project/reflection
  • Collaborative activities, discussion boards (using google drive, jamboard, Miro, Mural, or Flip)
  • Case study analysis (individual or in group...in a break-out room or in an annotated document)
  • Peer teaching
  • Digital poster presentations, could be pre-recorded and commented on in Canvas or Flip 
  • Weekly reflection journal
    • Writing
    • Discussion prompt
    • Google slide activity
    • voice/video recording
  • Group annotation of readings/cases/documents (could assign students specific roles e.g. summarizer, synthesis, connecting to other materials/concepts, questioner)
  • Group mind mapping/solution finding by using a common whiteboard in Miro or Mural

**When doing group work, remember that the structure of groups impacts the assignments, so consider: consistent groups (reflection groups are the same throughout the term to build community), topic-selected groups (students self select a topic for discussion each week), values-based groups (students select group members to work with based on what they value in the course and work availability, e.g. some students may group around high motivation for a good grade while others may group around being driven by deadlines)

Internship-themed activities and assignments:

  • Goal setting exercises which develop learning and development goals.
  • Work Conflict Reflection assignment - sharing out about conflicts…discussion board or Flip with video responses
  • Zoom break-out room discussions.
  • Students utilize their career center(s) on campus for post internship support (resume, mock interview, asking for references, etc) or even in the moment support about how to navigate certain topics/experiences that are coming up in their internship experiences (language around asking about opportunities to engage in, networking, informational interviews, elevator pitches, etc).
  • LinkedIn Connections assignment (or other relevant social media connections)
  • Presentations about insights about their company/industry…video/powerpoint/elevator pitch based on how they want to market themselves (draft of pitch/peer review of pitch/final pitch)
  • Update resume and/or Linkedin to incorporate your internship
  • Exercises to reflect on performance through formal or informal performance review processes. 
  • Organizational role play scenarios 
  • Industry trend reports/industry news using google alerts to cover news articles over a period of time 
  • Digital artifacts – collect items/images from internship that help tell a story or narrative about experience/learning (e.g. mission statement of organization, DEI statements, achievements/milestones in internship project) 
  • Networking practice, fostering student-to-student connection about their experiences 
  • Personal career plan/goals and students could visualize their desired career path through different media such as slides, poster, hand-drawn art, video, or podcast
  • Feedback analysis – consider feedback you’ve received from your internship recently and reflect on how you might use the feedback to improve, or who and how you might ask for feedback (FeedbackFruits peer review– also prompts students to edit their feedback)
    • And/or have the students complete a performance evaluation with their internship supervisor. 
  • Consider team/institutional/organization changes you would make to the organization and defend your rationale for changes, create a proposal that outlines your plan 
  • Ask students to reflect on how they view their fit in the organization/company culture based on their values or career goals. 
  • Have an informational interview with someone at your organization or in an organization of interest to you or who may share a similar identity as you - what did you learn/find surprising/challenged you? 
  • Draft reference emails to ask for future references from supervisors or colleague sfrom internship sites. 
  • Letter to the next intern – what advice would you give the person that will replace you? 
  • Include short quiz questions in lecture materials/videos (kaltura)
  • Explainer videos - have students create a short explainer video to discuss one issue that impacts their work/industry/internship
  • Mock interviews (use Flip to record an interview question and have students reply with their response)
  • Have students use their career center by signing up for an appointment with a career coach and doing a mock interview to practice talking about their internship experience. 
  • Create a library of common interview questions and have students write responses (STAR method). This could also be structured to be a recorded option with peer feedback. 
  • Interview someone doing similar work and have a career conversation with them about their experiences. Compare and contrast this to what you’ve experienced in your internship. 
  • Interview someone doing similar work and have a career conversation with them to help students gather information to make decisions about their career goals. 
  • Virtual field trip/virtual resource gathering 
  • Create an infographic describing the internship site - edit and evolve this throughout the semester
  • Create a short “Day-In-Life” video of your internship position
  • Write a blog post focusing on a moment of growth during the internship or one thing you are proud of during the semester
  • Create a magazine spread of students’ articles or blog posts from the semester
  • Develop a StoryMap chronicling the internship experience and highlighting the learning and skill development that occurred through the experience 
  • Create a podcast episode in the style of radiolab by gathering soundbits and music that relates to your internship site. 
  • Complete a 360 review of yourself or a colleague at your internship site
  • Write a mock job description for your dream job based on your experiences during and reflections on your internship

Sample Syllabi

Online Synchronous

Online Asynchronous