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 Subject : Re:Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 12:59:46 PM 
Donna Gaspar
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Hi Alyssa,
Thanks for this consideration and I will look into that as well. I appreciate your feedback. Donna
 Subject : Re:Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 12:56:48 PM 
Donna Gaspar
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Hi Gabby,
This is really helpful information to know how other schools handle this. I appreciate your feedback! Happy Thanksgiving! Donna
 Subject : Re:Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 12:54:09 PM 
Donna Gaspar
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Many thanks for this advice! Donna
 Subject : Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 12:44:11 PM 
Aaron Clevenger
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While your question was not specific to international students, since International Education is my current area of responsibility, I can share from the perspective of Curriculum Practical Training or internships for international students. We often have the same request, especially when companies want us to start international students a week or two before the summer semester has begun. To ensure that we are following US Department of Homeland Security regulations in this regard, we worked with our Registrar/Records Office to officially create a semester/term for the requested timeframe, such as an official wintermester term or a summer C term that begins before Summer A and goes for a week longer than Summer B. Once your university officially recognizes these terms, your International Student & Scholar Services team can request that these new terms be added to your I-17 (a form used in Immigration to share with the government such information as your official semester/terms and what degrees you offer. Then, your international students can take these classes within the newly created terms. You will need Career Services, International Student & Scholar Services, and your Academic Affairs leadership team to partner with your registrar to accomplish the new term.

Another thought: you should ask your Study Abroad office or your registrar's office if a wintermester or term between fall and spring already exists in the catalog. If your university does short-term study abroad programs between semesters, then there might already be a term that you can use.
 Subject : Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 11:09:43 AM 
Samantha Campa
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Hi Donna, we are very flexible with start and end dates outside of the academic semester. We require students to register for the term when the majority of the internship takes place. Very occasionally we have students do a winter break internship that falls almost entirely outside of a semester, and in those cases our registration office prefers to have students register for the spring semester that follows the internship.

I work with business students, so almost all of their internships are paid and we do not deal with contracts or waivers. There may be an issue with CPT if an F-1 student did a winter break internship, but I haven't encountered that yet, so I don't know what our DSO would advise in that case.
 Subject : Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 11:08:08 AM 
Alyssa Marks
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Hi Donna - Welcome to the internship world! My first caution with this type of arrangement would be worker's compensation. If a student is not covered by the employer (i.e. an unpaid experience) then the student would be at risk during the weeks before or outside of coverage from the university worker's compensation and liability that go along with taking the experience for credit. In cases where I have allowed this in the past, we have cleared that hurdle with the employer covering the worker's compensation for that time period and ensuring the faculty were open to utilizing hours before the start of the next semester towards their credit-baring course. Hope this is a start of some help on this topic!
 Subject : Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 11:07:46 AM 
Gabby Coggin
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Hey Donna:
My name is Gabby Coggin, and I am the Director of Career Services for the Honors College at the University of South Carolina, where we offer internship classes Fall, Spring and Summer. We are pretty flexible for our internships courses offered Fall, Spring and Summer and we tend to follow a August-December time frame for Fall, January-End of May for Spring, and June-July for Summer, not following exact academic calendar dates.

That being said, for summer, a lot of our internships we see start mid-May/right after the assumed graduation dates, and we allow our summer students to count those hours. We also have quite a few summer students who will work at their internship through August/until school starts, and because we require them to work 150 hours over the summer, if they need those few extra weeks to meet their hours we allow for that. Because grades are due at the end of July, we will give them students "Incomplete (I) Grade" that is recorded, and change the grade once the internship is complete (when we input the grade, we set a deadline for the final assignments and hours to be submitted).

For Fall, I have seen internships that start after labor day, and run until right before Christmas, which is not within our academic calendar for that semester, but we don't have a problem being flexible. We use the same practice of allowing incomplete grades until the course and internship are complete, since the grades are due before the internship ends. The same goes for Spring.

The Spring semester poses the opposite problem, with internships starting well before the class starts, and we allow them to count any hours that were worked in January towards their Spring 150 hour requirement.

Our class is an online, asynchronous course which may make this easier than what you do at your institution, but I wanted to comment the practice we use at USC in case that would be helpful.

GC
 Subject : Re:Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 10:45:47 AM 
Jon Boroshok
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Check with your Registrar. Burser, or whoever controls financial aid compliance. The financial aid rules may have some impact on internship start/stop dates. Unfortunately in academia, common sense doen't always prevail.

At Southern New Hampshire Univerity (the on campus program at least), students typically work 150 hours for three credits (I like your 120 better!). Sometimes a student is just a little short and I can give an "Incomplete" grade which allows me and the student an extra 14-30 days to meet the numbers needed. That's uaually handled on an individual basis.
Last Edited On: 11/21/2023 12:06:15 PM By Jon Boroshok
 Subject : Credit bearing internship hours outside semester timeframe.. 11/21/2023 10:24:53 AM 
Donna Gaspar
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As a newbie to internship coordination, I have a question and would appreciate any input about best practice protocol. Historically as part of a 3-credit 120 hour internship course, all hours served for that internship (about 8-10/hours per week) had to occur during the semester (fall/spring/or summer semester timeframe). I have been receiving more and more requests from both students and in some cases employer sites (especially those that coincide with sports teams/ seasons) about students being able to complete some of those internship hours outside of the regular academic semester calendar timeframe. For example, some of the internship hours being completed during winter break before the start of the spring semester in January but counting towards that spring semester internship hours. What are the implications of this (contractual, insurance, waivers of liability, etc.)? Do other schools allow flexibility in some hours being done outside of the traditional semester timeframe? Thanks for your feedback.
 
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