Expanding the Learning Community: Using Electronic Mentoring to Build Academic/Industry Partnerships  

New technologies provide technical communicators with opportunities to expand their learning communities. Establishing and maintaining an electronic mentoring forum will benefit students and teachers.

Fink, Bonnie L., Leslie K. Gasser and Kara L. Schubert. STC Proceedings (1996). Academic>Internships>Industry and Academy>Education

Faculty Internship Panel  

The Faculty Internship Panel provides a guideline and model for faculty internship programs. Although technical communicator internships, particularly faculty internships in the corporate environment, are generally considered a good idea. They are difficult to set up. The Austin STC chapter (in collaboration with members of the Austin Technical Communications Mangers' Focus Group and the Technical Communications Department at Austin Community College) set up and ran a successful pilot Faculty Internship program. A panel offaculty interns and corporate sponsors provide pointers in planning, implementing, and evaluating such a program.

Rosenquist, Deborah J. STC Proceedings (1996). Academic>Internships>Education

Internship and Co-Op Database

MTU students, pursuing a degree in Scientific and Technical Communication, are encouraged to seek internship or Co-op opportunities which will provide them with professional experience prior to graduation. This page provides a listing of companies where students have worked in order to enhance their professional growth.

Michigan Tech University. Academic>Internships

Planning Successful Internships: Matchmaking for Organizational Culture  

The collaborative nature of information development departments create special challenges for student interns, challenges which require that the student, the academic department, and the information development department can meet with careful planning and preparation. An intern must not only be well prepared academically, with knowledge and skills that support a company’s needs; each intern must also understand and accept the organizational culture in which he or she must be deeply involved in order to work and learn effectively. The information development department can use each internship as an occasion to examine its own culture and communication patterns.

Rosenquist, Deborah J. and Katherine E. Staples. STC Proceedings (1994). Academic>Internships

Regulations Governing Internships  

The MTSC internship, an integral part of this program, is intended to provide students with supervised, first–hand experience at applying what they have learned in their classes to the kinds of professional situations they will encounter in their careers. Internships are also designed to help students gain or extend their direct, personal knowledge of the profession and its practices.

Miami University, Oxford. Academic>Internships

Student Internships in Technical Communication  

The internship is a very important part of the Scientific and Technical Communication program at the University of Minnesota. Through the internship students learn what it is like to work as technical communicators in the business setting and how to adapt to an organizational culture. The internship experience helps students research decisions about the type of technical communication work they would like to pursue and often leads to jobs offer after graduation. All undergraduate and graduate students are required to complete internships as part of their degree programs.

McDowell, Earl E. STC Proceedings (1997). Academic>Internships>TC

The Technical Writing Internship  

Based on her experiences as an interning technical communicator, Lurkis argues that internships are valuable experiences for both students and companies.

Lurkis, Elisa B. Intercom (2001). Academic>Internships

The Technical Communication Internship     

Experiential learning theory provides a theoretical foundation for studying technical communication internships. This study explores, through the perspective of the experiential learning cycle model developed by David Kolb, internships in technical communication. Participants in technical communication internship experiences were asked to provide, from their different perspectives, information that described the experience. Program directors, industrial supervisors, and student interns provided different views of what they had experienced, illustrating that most had entirely different perspectives on their level of participation in creating, supervising, and evaluating this form of educational experience. Besides describing technical communication programs in the United States more comprehensively, the results of this study raise questions about how the respondents perceived their experience and how the "reality" of these perceptions often conflict. When these findings are explored within the epistemology conceptualized by Kolb's experiential learning theory, a framework is established for more systemic procedures and standards that will enhance the internship as a credible learning experience.

Little, Sherry Burgus. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1993). Academic>Internships>TC