Year Abroad - Method of Assessment
A work internship as part of your year abroad is as challenging as it is potentially rewarding. A work internship requires considerable maturity and motivation. Through your work internship you will develop various personal and practical skills. The assessment package is designed to help you get the most out of your work internship.
The Internship diary, Self-evaluation, General Report and Internship Report together form one component of your degree.
- Internship Diary 45%
- General Report 40%
- Internship Report 15%
The internship diary is an extremely important part of your internship experience. The diary, as with the conventional form, is very useful in getting you to be reflective and articulate concerns as well as record successes and triumphs. The diary is, however, much more than a personal diary - its purpose is to enable you to be critically reflective about your experiences. In your diary you will build up knowledge of yourself, your internship and the country in which you are living. You will develop ideas and record material which can be used in the self-assessment form and the general report as well as the internship report.
How to Write the Internship Diary
There are two ways to organize your internship diary, thematically, or chronologically. In your diary you must address the main topics listed below. You may divide your diary into sections and write in them under each topic heading every week. Alternatively you can make weekly entries, making sure that you regularly cover the topics. You may also paste clippings into your diary. These may be newspaper clippings that have an impact on what you do and your diary entry for that day could be a commentary on that article. You may also include other material such as excerpts from documentation produced by your internship organisation, photographs you have taken and so on. In all cases make sure you comment on the pasting rather than just stick it in. Make sure you get into the habit of writing your work diary regularly. It is not necessary to write every day but you should expect to write in your internship diary once a week at the very minimum.
How the Internship Diary is Assessed
The diary will be submitted and assessed upon your return to the University of Essex. Content will be assessed in terms students' ability to:
- Reflect sensitively and critically on the social and cultural setting of the internship
- Relate day-to-day work experiences to broader national or international events and processes
- Reflect on activities, developments and experiences in a meaningful and positive way.
Internship Diary Topics
There are five main topics you need to cover in your internship diary. Some of these will be more or less significant depending on your particular internship but they will be important in all internships:
- Cultural Knowledge
- Race and Ethnicity
- Gender
- Power
- Language
- Work
Thinking about these topics will help you think critically and reflexively about the work you do. Do not expect to answer all of these questions completely the first time. You will find that as your internship proceeds you will change, develop and enhance your answers to these questions. Your opinion may change and this is most certainly not a problem in your diary. The questions listed after each topic are suggestions to get you going. You will doubtless expand and develop these and think of more questions yourself.
Cultural Knowledge
- What are some of the aspects of social interaction which appear foreign or difficult to you?
- What are some of the cultural values shared by the people you are working with that appear important, or that you may have difficulty with?
- What are things you need to learn about the work culture to operate more effectively?
- What are the broader customs which you need to accommodate or acquire?
Race and Ethnicity
- What is the racial composition of your work place?
- Is race/ethnicity an issue in your work?
- Is the organisation in which you are placed racially/ethnically hierarchical?
- What kind of language do people use about other racial/ethnic groups?
Gender
- What is the gender composition of your work place?
- Does gender implicitly or explicitly come into your work?
- Is your work directed at a particular gender?
- How do people interact with people of the same gender/opposite gender?
Power
- What is the power structure of the organisation in which you work?
- How does it relate to the way power is exercised in society outside the organisation?
- Is your organisation attempting to change power relations in society or is it broadly supportive of existing power relations?
- How is power exercised in relation to gender/race/ethnicity?
- How do you feel about the power you exercise or don't exercise in the organisation?
Language
- Does the language vary inside the structure of the organisation?
- Have you seen instances of language as related to power?
- Does the workplace language vary according to gender/age/nationality?
- Have you become aware of the type of language you speak and of where it fits within the work structure?
- Is there a difference between the language spoken in different social spaces within the workplace like meetings/team work/ one to one exchanges / coffee machine exchanges?
- Is there a workplace style of jargon?
Work
- What is the work you do?
- How is it changing over time?
- How are you relating to your colleagues?
- What are the problems you are having and how can they be overcome?
- What are the positive and negative things about your work?
- What are your triumphs and what are your disappointments?
- What are you learning from your work internship?
The General Report must be written in Spanish or in Portuguese in the case of those students studying in Brazil. The General Report should not normally be less than 3,500 words. The general report discusses the general background to your internship. The report should show an awareness of the political, social and economic context of the country in which you are living. This may include a discussion of the reasons why organisations such as the one in which you are working are needed. You may also wish to consider how this country compares to its neighbours and others in the region in certain key areas you identify. This report should be essentially factual but theoretical perspectives may be included and discussed if appropriate. If, for example, you work in an orphanage in Bolivia your general report might include:
- A discussion on the general status and condition of orphanages in Bolivia
- The reasons for the abandoned and orphaned children
- How Bolivia compares to other countries in the region in this respect; how they are provided for nationally
- How the orphanage in which you work fits into the national picture
If, for example, your work internship is in a literacy project for black girls in Bahia your general report might include:
- A discussion of the issue of literacy in Bahia and Brazil and why it is particularly important to black girls
- An account of the general provision of education in Brazil and Bahia and for black girls in particular
- A broader discussion on the provision of education and any shortfalls
- A discussion on the issue of race in Brazil and Bahia
- A discussion on issues of gender and education with particular reference to literacy
How the General Report is Assessed
The general report will be submitted and assessed upon your return to the University of Essex. Content is assessed in terms of students' ability to:
- Locate their internship within a broader national, regional and global context as appropriate.
- Provide the relevant social, political and economic background to the organisation within which the internship is undertaken and the activities pursued by it.
- Demonstrate an awareness of national and regional issues that are relevant to the internship.
- Express themselves in Spanish or Portuguese
Internship Report - How the Internship Report is Assessed
The internship report must be written in Spanish or Portuguese and should not normally be shorter than 2,500 words in length. Whereas the General Report locates the internship in a broader context, the Internship Report focuses much more closely on the actual internship organisation. This report may include a brief history of the organisation; an account of the range of activities undertaken; a description of the hierarchy of the organisation; a discussion of how the organisation fits into the ‘local scene’, including local politics if relevant; or an account of how the organisation liaises, conflicts, cooperates etc. with other similar organisations.