internship report
If your internship started late, and as a result, you will not finish working when classes end, you have two months after the date of completion to finish your final report and deliver it to your advisor. If you have a scheduling conflict, you must discuss it with your internship advisor beforehand, not at the last minute! Your internship advisor is the one who reads and grades your report, so you have to give it to him/her directly.
Students who complete their internships during their last semester must complete their final reports by the end of the semester if they want to graduate as expected. Otherwise, students can participate in the commencement ceremony but graduate at a later date while receiving an IP (incomplete in progress) in lieu of an internship grade.
Regardless of the student’s graduation date, the final paper must be submitted to the internship advisor no later than the final week of classes of the semester following the semester for which the student enrolled for the internship. If the final paper is not handed in by that week, the student will receive a Failing grade, F, for the paper and will not receive credit for the course.
REPORT GUIDELINES:
These guidelines define what you should present as a final output. You must follow them to make sure that your final paper effectively covers all the necessary aspects of your learning experience. To be effective, you must pay close attention to both substance and style. What you are about to write is complex, and your conclusions will derive from long hours of research, personal observations and conversations, thinking, and reflection. Your objective is to tell the reader what you have learned in a concise manner. The discussion of a complex subject such as this one is more effective when you develop an organized report.
Good writing is essential, and make sure that your bibliography, spelling, grammar, and tables/exhibits follow correct style. Consult with your internship advisor regarding style requirements. If you need assistance, please visit the Writing Center to have them check and revise your paper before you turn it in to your internship advisor.
This guide begins with a few tips on good style and follows with an outline for your internship paper.
A Few Good Tips:
Make sure that you use main, second level, and even third level headings to show transitions from one aspect of the subject to another.
Choose your paragraph transitions carefully—they make for easy reading.
Begin each paragraph with a good topic sentence and stick to that topic.
Avoid one-sentence paragraphs.
Avoid jargon and unusual phrasing. The complexity of your subject calls for simple sentence constructions. If you must use unusual words, make sure you include a concept list explaining them.
Do not exceed 25, single-sided, double-spaced, letter-sized pages- minimum requirement of 15 pages.
The executive summary, title page, table of contents, bibliography, exhibits, and any endnotes DO NOT count in the page count.
Use Times-Roman or a similar font in size 11 or 12 typeface.
Bind your report securely and neatly in some sort of folder. Do not use the plastic type that has the long, colored plastic clip that slips off each time a page is turned.
Number all your pages and include a header.
Include tables, charts, and figures to illustrate points or support conclusions. Please do not use an exhibit unless you refer to it in the text of the paper.
Your expectations must match your efforts! If you expect a good grade, the work described here cannot be done the night before the paper is due. You possess absolute control over your grade on this report.
Paper Outline:
- TITLE PAGE
This should contain the names of the company, the industry, and both your name and your student ID number. The course name and code number, semester, and year should also be included.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Begin your report with one or two paragraphs summarizing your major findings and conclusions (just the highlights). This should not exceed one page. Do not include supporting evidence.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pay close attention to numbering. Most software packages have the capability to help you develop professional-looking table of content.
LIST OF EXHIBITS
Clearly identify all exhibits used. Remember to include exhibits that you mention in your paper. (This may be part of your Table of Contents.)
CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS
In this section, you will provide a description of the economic, political, technological and cultural environment of the country and city in which your company/organization operates.
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
In this section, you will describe and analyze the industry in which your company/organization operates.
Include the following:
Begin by describing the industry in which your internship company operates.
Identify or describe the industry’s major products and services, its major competitors within the industry, and geographic scope (here you explain if the industry is located in specific geographical areas or if it is global.)
Include a short history of the industry indicating how it was created, how it has changed over time, the major issues it has faced in the past, and how the industry has responded.
Gather and show relevant economic, financial, and statistical data, such as sales (including percentage growth rates that may indicate the stage of the industry life cycle,) import/export data, market demographics, employment statistics, financial ratios, market values of the firms in the industry, market shares, sales concentration, or any other data that seem important to telling your story.
Identify and discuss the major forces of the industry environment (e.g. political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, competitive factors that impact how the industry functions.)
Describe any international aspects of the industry.
Explain any unique and pervasive situation or event that exists in your industry (e.g. privatization or recent government regulations being imposed or changed), if relevant.
Conclusion: Conclude this section with a statement on the outlook for this industry. This is most important. You must show that you understand the industry by stating your belief about why the industry is in the condition it is in and what the future holds. Your belief must be supported by the information and analysis provided earlier. This is where you can show significant independent thinking and creativity. You are expected to apply critical thinking and be creative.
COMPANY ANALYSIS
In this section, you will explain and give examples of how and why your internship company/organization responds to its industry environment the way it does. To find this information, read annual reports, newspaper and magazine articles and books during your internship.
Include the following:
Describe the company/organization, its products and/or services, its divisions, geographic coverage, headquarters, number of employees, sales/revenues, assets, and/or any other significant descriptive data.
Describe its performance (financial and otherwise.) Show trends over the last few years compared with competitors or industry averages, if relevant.
Describe the company’s mission and objectives as published, as told in interviews, deduced from your interaction with or observation of members of the company, or as a combination of all these.
Explain and assess the strategy of your company and why it seems to have chosen this strategy.
Describe as much as you can of the firm’s organizational structure, management style, organizational culture and climate, leadership, reward system, and control system. (Make an effort to speak with employees and executives who may tell you about these issues. Make informed estimates otherwise.)
Conclusion: In your conclusion to this section, include your assessment of the following:
Do the internal conditions of your company appear to fit well within the environmental conditions described in your industry analysis?
Compare things you have described about your company with its competitors. Is your firm in better or worse shape than competitors? What are your firm’s strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis its competitors? You should be able to explain why your firm has performed well or poorly.
State whether you believe that the company should maintain or change its mission, objectives, strategy, structure, style or culture.
What do you think the future of the firm will be? Why? Support your prediction using the information and analysis you included earlier.
INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE
Describe your actual internship.
Include the following:
Describe the department(s) in which you worked.
Describe your actual work assignment(s); include actual work products (if available) as exhibits to this paper. Here, give short descriptions of these exhibits. If you cannot include these samples, be sure to explain what they were and how they were used by the company/organization for which you worked.
Explain how you interacted with your supervisor and others in managerial capacities in your organization.
Explain how you contributed to the ongoing operations of your company.
Explain how your efforts contributed to the organization achieving its goals/objectives/mission.
PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE OF YOUR INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE
In this section, you are going to focus on your perceptions and experiences in the organization.
Hint: A great way to do this is to keep a weekly or daily journal or log of your activities and observations. It will make writing this portion of your paper much simpler.
Include the following:
An explanation of the specific skills you used and enhanced during your internship. (eg., communication skills, analytical skills, organizational skills, leadership skills)
Describe how this internship experience has contributed to your career goals. (eg. Did it show you that you want to work in this industry, did it demonstrate a certain work culture that you do/so not like?, etc.)
Describe your overall experience in this internship with the job, the company, the people, the locals (for international internships,) etc.
ENDNOTES
If your internship advisor permits you to use endnotes, include them here.
BIBLIOGRAPHY / REFERENCES
Use single-spaces within an entry and double-space. You should check with your internship advisor about the referencing style he/she prefers (eg. APA, MLA, etc.).
EXHIBITS
Remember to use them only if you referred to them within the text of your report.
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Remember to ask your supervisor for information that you may need later to complete your report. Ask for it beforehand and keep a contact list of people that may answer doubts about the company once you finish your internship.
Collect collateral information about the company. Look for books and/or articles written about it.
After you complete your Internship Paper, consider giving your supervisor a copy. They may want to consider/use your analysis for future reference.
Make sure that you ask permission from your supervisor if you are going to include any information that may be considered confidential. Remind them that only your internship advisor reads this report. Also, include a confidentiality disclaimer in your paper.
Include the following confidentiality disclaimer on a separate page immediately following your title page:
Confidentiality Disclaimer:
| The information transmitted in this document, whether or not received via electronic mail is intended only for the person, persons, entity, or entities to which it is addressed and does not necessarily represent the views of [insert your internship company’s name]. |
If you have received this document via electronic mail in error, please:
contact the sender, and
delete the material from your computer.
If you have received this document in error, please:
do not read it, and
return it to the preparer
Approved at GPC 10/16/13
