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Photo collage Lecture hall, HVDC test center, charging station from the inside © Dorothe Lunte​/​TU Dortmund

Frequently asked questions about industrial internships

The following frequently asked questions relate to the ETIT and ICT degree programs.

Are days of absence (vacation, bridge days, illness, etc.) to be made up?

In the Bachelor's degree programs (ETIT and ICT), only three (3) days of absence may occur during the required internship period of 12 weeks; each additional day of absence must be made up.

  • The following are generally considered days of absence for the purposes of the internship: vacation, illness, strike or other absences.
  • Public holidays are not days of absence within the meaning of the internship regulations. Bridge days (i.e. regular working days between public holidays or weekend days on which no work is performed) are generally considered days of absence if the lost working time has not been made up or made up for.

How must the internship be divided into the areas of activity?

In order to ensure a sufficient breadth of practical vocational training, activities in at least two areas must be carried out in roughly equal parts. The division of time can be varied within a larger framework (e.g. 1/3 - 2/3) and does not have to be exactly the same. The internship guidelines for the ETIT and ICT degree programs divide these areas of activity as follows:

  • FP1 - Research and development,
  • FP2 - Project planning, design
  • FP3 - Testing and commissioning, operation and maintenance
  • FP4 - Production, assembly, disassembly, recycling and disposal
  • FP5 - Marketing, sales, operational organization, management and training

How should the report booklet be structured?

A report booklet must be kept for the entire duration of the practical activity. This report booklet forms the basis for the recognition of the internship as practical vocational training and also serves to learn how to present and describe technical issues. The reports must be written by the trainee.

The report booklet is divided into daily reports and weekly reports. It is advisable to start with an introductory description of the company or internship company. The department and its tasks in which the internship was carried out should also be briefly described.

The daily reports describe in a few key words (at least 3 key points!) the activities carried out each day, stating the time required (in hours). For reasons of clarity, each weekly overview (for one week) can also be presented in tabular form. Holidays, vacation days, sick days and other days of absence are also listed in the weekly overview.

The weekly reports should be written as continuous text and describe the activities carried out each week. The weekly reports can describe work processes, equipment, tools, methods and procedures, etc. and contain notes on experiences with the activities carried out. Freehand sketches, workshop drawings, circuit diagrams, diagrams etc. often save a long text. However, the report should not have the character of a collection of pictures, i.e. the contents of the pictures should be explained verbally. The use of photocopies or brochures (external material) should be avoided. The reports must be at least 3,000 characters long (including spaces), but excluding images (with normal formatting: 12 pt font, 1.5 line spacing, 2 cm margins, which corresponds to approx. 3,000 characters with spaces per page). It must be clear from the text that the intern has carried out the specified work themselves.

In addition to the purely weekly description, the weekly reports can also be a comprehensive description of projects or activities carried out over several weeks. However, it must be made clear when these activities were carried out. The length of these reports then depends on the length of the activities (an activity description of a three-week project is therefore at least three pages long).

Important: It is expected that all reports are checked for spelling, grammar and expression before submission. Reports that are not of adequate quality will need to be corrected, which may result in delays in recognition.

In which language can I write the internship report?

The report must be written in German or English. Which of these two languages is chosen usually depends on the internship company or the internship supervisor, as they are expected to read and sign the report. If a report is written in German, however, the use of superfluous Anglicisms should be avoided.

What information must the internship certificate contain?

The internship company issues the intern with an informal internship certificate on the company's own letterhead.

The internship certificate must contain the following information:

  • Company/training company (sector/department if applicable), with name of supervisor, address, telephone or e-mail for queries
  • Surname, first name, date and place of birth of the trainee
  • Start and end of the internship, total number of weeks
  • List and breakdown of the activities according to the training plan of the degree program, stating the type of activity and duration (e.g.: FP1 Research, Development 2 weeks)
  • Explicit indication of the number of days absent (even if no days absent were incurred!)
  • Specification of the average weekly working hours of the company
  • Indication of the intern's average weekly working hours
  • Declaration that the internship report has been read and checked by the supervisor (if not already noted on the last page of the report)

Can working student activities, employment or training be recognized as an industrial internship?

Student assistant activities at a university or university of applied sciences (SHK) are not recognized. Apprenticeships are also generally not recognized as industrial internships, as their learning objective is not the same as the specialist internship as part of the degree course.

Industry-related development work or collaboration on corresponding research projects in research institutions outside the university can be recognized as a specialist internship. Working student activities in industry or a professional activity can be credited towards the required work placement. The activities must be full-time employment; part-time activities in accordance with the Low Income Act are not recognized. The regular weekly working hours must therefore be more than 50% of the usual working hours in the industry. In addition, only the days on which full-time work was performed can be taken into account. If this is the case, the duration of work is cumulated (i.e. with a weekly working time of 50%, 2 weeks must be completed in order to be recognized as one week).

Important: All eligible substitute periods must have in common that they are related to the subject/content of the degree course and that engineering-related activities were carried out. Appropriate weekly and daily reports must be submitted for recognition.

Can industrial internships from other universities be recognized?

Industrial internships that were completed as part of a degree course in electrical engineering and/or information technology at another German university or technical university and were recognized by this university as practical vocational training will be fully credited in the event of a change of study location without a new examination. The relevant certificate from the previous university must be submitted for recognition.