Study Internship at the Faculty of Humanities

Main idea

The aim is to reduce the gap between expectations and reality, but also to demystify what a university is and to leave the interns with the belief that they have what it takes to get a university degree.

Outline

 

The Passive Decision-Making Process
Most high school students are in a “passive decision-making process” at this stage, where they are exploring different types of education rather than making specific decisions. The study internship differs from events like “Open House” and “Student for a Day” by focusing on broadening their knowledge and interests.

The main purpose
The main purpose of study internship is to give potential new students a taste of what university is and what to expect if they choose to study at a university in general and at a specific programme.

Program structure
The Faculty of Humanities, in collaboration with Study Service, organizes the following activities:

Day 0
The Faculty of Humanties sends out a digital guide via text message to welcome and prepare all interns at the Humanities to the scope of the two days, what to expect and matching expectations. The digital guide is developed be the Student Guidance services at the Humanities.

Day 1
9:00-10:00: Welcome session
10:00-16:00: Activities within the specific study programs
Evening: Afterstudy social event

Day 2
8:30-9:30: Morning session
10:00-14:00: Activities within the specific study programs
14:00-15:00: Closing session

Activities overview
The activities are designed to provide a realistic and engaging experience of university life:

• Welcome to the program: Introduction to the study program, including academic disciplines and career prospects.
• Student activities: Interaction with current students to build informal connections and gain insights into student life.
• Academic experience: Hands-on activities and workshops to experience the academic aspects of the program.
• Research and teaching: Meet researchers and lecturers to understand their work and what makes a good student.

Goals

During the internship, participants will:

• Discover the opportunities for an engaging academic life with interesting challenges.
• Envision themselves as university students, both academically and personally.
• Understand the potential to make a positive impact through their studies.

Students involvement

Students are involved as employees – study mentors/academic advisors and the student assistances are students themselves, and they play a big part in the event.

Inspiration and evidence

The study internship is a national initiative, but the design and concept of the internship at the Humanities is based on previous experiences, participant evaluation, research conducted by Companyoung and decion-making theories.

Success criteria

Benefits of the Study Internship

• Academic and personal identity: Helping students see themselves as future university students.
• Future prospects: Highlighting the long-term benefits and career opportunities.
• Engagement and interaction: Encouraging active participation and reflection on their experiences.

Do you feel you can effectively provide the support that students require?

We do agree.

Would you recommend this to other institutions?

strongly agree

Evaluation

The initiative is evaluated – the forms are made from the national unit, and every programme are responsible for the interns to evaluate their internship.

The interns are asked if they feel more informed on their education choice. In 2022 87,83% of them answered that they did.

They are asked if they were confirmed in their assumption on wanting to apply for a higher education, and here also 87,83 % of them answered, that yes, they want to apply for higher education.

The study interns are asked which element of the study internship (the academic part) they valued the most.

• To hear about the education structure and the academic content (76,19 %)
• Experiencing the classes (66,67%)
• Meeting the students and hearing about their every day life as a student (62,43%)
• To hear about career options (44,44%)
• To hear about the social life as a student (student associations, what the city has to offer etc.) (32,28%)
• To hear about the practical things about being a student (moving, housing, economy etc.) (28,04%)
• A tour around campus (19,58%)

We use the evaluation to improve the study internship and sharpen our focus in planning the days.

Communication

We advertise it on our central webpage sdu.dk, but most of the communication/advertisement is handled outside of SDU.

The students involved from SDU is employed by the central administration at SDU.

Timing

The study internship is held every year the same week in October – it’s the same week all over Denmark.

Resources

Study internship is nationally managed by a group gathered between a national guidance unit called ‘Studievalg’ and two Danish educational institutions. SDU is one of them.

A lot of staff is involved in this throughout SDU.
The planning starts in April and the event takes place in October.

Staff involved
There is a lot of administrative staff involved in the event. It is staff members from the central administration and staff from every faculty. Every faculty has their own coordinator, who coordinates internally at the faculty.

At every programme there is a Head of Studies and a study secretary. They decide how many internships they can offer, and then they plan the programme for the internship at their programme.

Many of the programmes also have a study mentor/academic advisor who is a student at the programme but is also employed to guide the students. At the days of the study internships most of the study mentors/academic advisors play a big part in the execution of the study internships. Their role differs from programme to programme.

There are also 3-4 student guidance officers involved – they develope the digital guide, text message reminders, host the welcome session on day 1, and the morning and afternoon session on day 2.

Several student assistants serves as practical help during the study internship – guiding, handing out tickets to the public transportation, handing out lunch etc. and then in the planning and execution of the ‘afterstudy’ activities.

Expenses
There is some shared expenses connected to study internship that all the participating institutions contributes to – depending on the size of the institution and how many interns they had. But there are also a lot of other expenses more locally – food, salaries, materials etc.

Transferability

We think it is somewhat transferable to other contexts or groups.

Specific for the context
It is important to state, that the study internship is a national initiative created in a cooperation between several educational institutions and a national guidance unit in Denmark.