Contract
International Internships
Your final grade in this internship course will be determined by your advisor based on weighing the written evaluation from your supervisor and the paper you will write in the fall semester about your internship experience. Although there is no minimum or maximum word count on your paper, you are required to address each of the criteria listed under “Required Components” (below) in a thoughtful and reflective way. You may consider this document to be an informal contract whose terms require you to meet these criteria in order to earn a grade consistent with your expectations.
You may submit a rough draft of your internship paper to your advisor by the middle of the Fall semester (the specific date should be jointly agreed upon). Your advisor will provide you with comments and strategies you might employ to improve your paper. The deadline for the final version of your paper is the first day of finals week.
Required Components
Introduction
- You should provide a discussion about the reasons you chose this particular internship. You may want to frame these reasons in terms of your academic and career goals. In particular, why was it important to you to experience another culture?
- Describe your daily responsibilities and routines, offering some personal insight as to how they met (or did not meet) the expectations you had before the internship began.
Make a Definitive Link between the Internship and a 300-Level Meteorology Course (most likely, Meteo 300)
- You must document at least one “event” that occurred during your internship that makes a clear link to a specific facet of one of your 300-level meteorology courses. For example, suppose your internship took place at the Mid-Atlantic River Forecast Center and there was a risk of flash flooding on a certain day. You would then document the event (radar and satellite imagery, observations, soundings, surface and upper-air analyses, etc) and discuss it in the context of the principles you learned in Meteo 300.
- You should also provide personal insights into how the overall experience of working during the event helped to shape your view of the value of your education in meteorology and its utility in the professional world.
- It is strongly recommended that you keep a journal during your internship and make a point to archive any data or images you deem appropriate in making the required link to 300-level courses.
Reflective Component
Reflective writing is a very important component of your internship paper because it forces you to examine how the knowledge and experience you gained during your internship have impacted your attitudes and understanding of your overall career and academic goals. Although you will discover that reflective writing poses a real challenge, closely examining your internship from a personal point of view constitutes the final step in the process. The reflective writing component is not about atmospheric science. Rather, it is all about your personal insights and personal appraisal of your internship (the deeper your personal insights, the better). For example, did the internship solidify your career plans or cause you to reassess your plans? How did the fact that your internship took place in another country influence your experience? As you tell your reflective story, try your best to provide specific examples that helped to shape your attitudes and understanding.