Business Administration

Internship Office

The Internship Semester in the Business Administration Program

The internship semester (PSS) is an integral part of the bachelor’s degree at the University of Konstanz, cf. § 8 General Part of the Study and Examination Regulations. Its main component is a compulsory internship of at least 20 weeks in a company, which is completed in the 5th semester. At the university, the internship is supplemented by events for preparation and follow-up.

Goal setting

A project should be the focus of the PSS. The students should further deepen the knowledge they have acquired during their studies as part of independent project work, for example by bringing in ideas or taking responsibility for tasks, and thus gain a comprehensive overview of a task area or a company area. The PSS should also provide pointers and guidelines for future employment. In addition, the students should use the opportunity during this time to develop ideas for a practical bachelor thesis. If possible, an internship abroad should be considered in order to further develop and supplement the linguistic and technical skills in an international economic setting, and also to broaden your personal experience to meet the challenges of a different cultural environment.

Search for an internship

The students are responsible for finding a suitable internship themselves. The internship office provides information about internships in its MOODLE course. This course also contains the link to the central job and career portal of the University of Konstanz.

Duration of the internship semester

The PSS must have at least 95 days of attendance (this corresponds to approx. 20 weeks). Vacation days and any sick days do not count as days of attendance and must therefore be added / calculated in advance. We generally recommend an internship of 6 months.

Contracts

The internship contracts and the application for admission (download the file with the application form to fill out) for the integrated internship semester must be sent by email to the internship office BWL (Praktikum-bwl@htwg-konstanz.de) before the start of the activity. There they will be checked for their suitability. With regard to the suitability of internship positions, the internship office advises BWL on request in advance.

Preparation

The PSS preparation includes mandatory appointments for the students, which for example deal with the application process, the right choice of a company, social behavior in the company and the aspects of an internship abroad. Other events specifically promote skills for the conception and implementation of projects. The exchange of experiences among the students is guaranteed through events such as the "Fair of practical experience".

Postprocessing

The follow-up is primarily a reflection of the experiences. The students organize the "Fair of Practical Experiences" independently, to which they invite the younger semesters to present their experiences in the application process, in the internship itself and also with regard to the report. Part of the reflection is also a brochure with relevant addresses and contacts, a brief description of the internship and a brief summary for the invited students.

Internship Report

The core of the follow-up is the creation of a qualified report on the PSS, which is assessed by the head of the internship office (in the sense of pass / fail). The PSS report should be around 20-25 pages long and contain the following points:

• brief description of the company (e.g. development, industry, organization)
• Course of the internship, stating the departments passed through and the activities carried out on site (content, scope and duration of the individual activities)
• a detailed description of the tasks and topics you have worked on yourself (main part of the report!), a short summary (evaluation of the internship).

The following must also be submitted:

• a certificate stating the number of days of attendance (this can also be included in the certificate), as well as
• a two-page short version of the report and the completed evaluation sheet to pass on the experiences to the following semester.

The report must be signed by a representative of the company and submitted to the internship office in due time together with the certificate. A simple certificate is sufficient. For later applications, however, a qualified certificate should be required.

Recognition

Requirements for recognition:

• Participation in all compulsory preparation and follow-up courses
• Timely submission of a report approved and signed by the company including all additional components such as the certificate of the number of days of attendance, the two-page short report and the completed evaluation sheet
• Submission of a certificate

If the deadline is not submitted, an application for an extension of the deadline must be submitted to the head of the internship office.

The office hours of the internship office are listed below and are attached to the internship office (P 203) at the beginning of each semester.

Services of the internship office:

• Advice on the selection of suitable companies (internship positions)
• Review and approval of applications and internship contracts for admission to the internship semester (PSS)
• Information material on potential company internships
• Advice on application modalities in an international context.

All forms relevant to the practical semester are entered in the MOODLE course [information from the internship office BW + job exchange] so that research and processing of the documents is possible from anywhere.

Providers of internship positions or other offers should contact the central career portal of HTWG Konstanz directly.

The website of the Career & Project Center (CPC) also refers to the web addresses of job exchanges (internships).

All further information about the internship semester can be found in the MOODLE course of the internship office for business administration.

Judgment from practice:

“Completion of suitable internships during the course of studies is one of the most important criteria when hiring young people today. If a successful internship has been completed abroad, this counts twice. "