Internships

Students majoring in forensic science at RSC must complete a 3 credit (one term) internship experience before graduation (a second internship may be taken for credit if desired). The internship is typically completed in the senior year, but can be done earlier. To be eligible, students must have completed at least 45 college credits with an overall cumulative GPA of 2.0 and a major GPA of 2.2. Internships also require prior completion at Sage of at least 6 credits in the discipline awarding the internship credit with a grade of 'C' or better.

The purpose of the internship is to allow interaction with forensic scientists in the workplace, helping the student to apply what has been learned through coursework, and enabling the student to explore career possibilities. Some students prefer to arrange their own internship. Others rely on RSC to arrange one. By the end of your sophomore year at RSC, you should have begun to explore the possibilities with your Academic Advisor, and with a specialist at the Career Planning office (244-2272). The experiences vary considerably from one semester to another: access to crime laboratories is restricted, with background checks usually required, and it sometimes can be hard to time the application just right or find an available Field Supervisor. Despite these obstacles, forensic scientists generally like internships and seek out such opportunities because they are seen as one way to grow both personally and professionally.

The department's connections to INVEST gives qualified forensic science students access to unique internships (both unpaid and paid) in the laboratory of Evident Technologies. Some of Evident's research has application to forensics, but the RSC interns do not necessarily work on forensics related projects. The quality of the internship experience is the more important consideration.

Guidelines

1. The internship is a three-way contract involving the student, Faculty Supervisor (the Faculty Supervisor is also your academic advisor and the Program Coordinator), and Field Supervisor (the hosting forensic scientist).
2. The program requires that there be at least 30 hours of direct contact between the student and the Field Supervisor over the course of a semester. More contact by telephone and e-mail should be expected, and there is significant additional time spent by the student in completing assignments given by the Field Supervisor.
3. A Sage Contract for Undergraduate Independent Academic Work form must be filled out by all parties and submitted to the Registrar before the end of the add/drop period in the semester (or summer session) of the internship. A different version of the form is to be used for internships or projects through INVEST.
4. The student is responsible for her own transportation to and from the internship site.
5. If the student arranges a summer internship, she must pay the associated tuition and fees.
6. The student is to document the internship in a bound laboratory notebook (a "Composition" notebook is acceptable; spiral-bound or loose-leaf binders are not acceptable).
7. Weekly meetings with the Faculty Supervisor are preferred. If that is not possible, the minimum requirement for monitoring progress is one meeting mid-way through the internship.
8. At the end of the internship, the student must submit a formal paper, 5-10 pages in length, on the experience. The paper must demonstrate that connections have been made between coursework in the program and the activities of the internship, especially in ways that have been laid out in the Contract. The Faculty Supervisor will assist the student with this task.
9. The student must give a final presentation to her peers, invited faculty and guests at a seminar. The seminar will normally be scheduled at the end of the semester of the internship (at the beginning of the next regular semester for summer internships).
10. The Field Supervisor must submit a written evaluation of the student intern, based in part upon the Contract statements of learning objectives and courses completed prior to the internship.
11. The student's grade is decided in a faculty conference after the formal presentation. The lab notebook, formal paper, presentation, and Field Supervisor evaluations are all considered. Significant deficiencies in performance, such as failure to keep appointments and failure to follow through on assignments, will result in a low or failing grade.

Examples

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