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Community Engagement Center Experience Sac State

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Academic Internships

NOTICE: Spring 2024 Guidelines

In accordance with President Nelsen's recent guidelines regarding Spring 2024 courses, students participating in clinical or other field placements and internships, including Academic Internship and Service Learning courses, must comply with the University’s vaccination policy. For more information about the vaccine or to schedule your appointment, please visit our COVID-19 FAQ page.

academic internships at sacramento state special mark

Why Academic Internships?

Benefits

An Academic Internship offers students an opportunity to work with qualified professionals in applying the skills and knowledge learned within the classroom to an on-the-job experience.

  • Interns tend to do better in their overall coursework and graduate faster because they are better able to see the relevance of coursework to real-world situations.
  • Students have the chance to “test” their career interests with an internship and will acquire work experience they can list on resumes and employment applications.
  • Interns tend to receive higher grades because they are better able to see the relevance of coursework to real-world situations.
  • In some cases, academic internships can provide students with money for school tuition and expenses.

Enrollment & Requirements

Academic Internships are supervised by a faculty member or designated internship coordinator within academic departments. Some university depart­ments and programs require students to do an internship; in other departments and programs, students have an option to pursue an internship for academic credit.

Enrollment

  • Typically, students must be individually hand-enrolled in these courses.
  • Internships are given the course designation 195 or 295.

Requirements

  • Academic internships can be paid or unpaid.
  • For every one unit of academic credit received, students must work 45 hours.

Faculty

The CEC helps facilitate Academic Internships in several ways. As of Academic Year 2016-2017, the university requires that all organizations which cooperate with the university to sponsor academic internships establish an Academic Internship/Service Learning Agreement with the university. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to Casey Knifsend.

Faculty Resources

When can you expect to see your course in CEC Connect, and start placing students?

For Fall semester, approximately 126 days prior to the beginning of fall semester

For Spring semester, approximately 70 days prior to the beginning of spring semester

For Summer session, approximately 54 days prior to the beginning of summer session

Students

An Academic Internship is a stand-alone course that formally integrates the student's academic study with practical experience in a cooperating organization. It is an on- or off-campus activity designed to serve educational purposes by offering experience in business, non-profit, or government settings.

Student Resources