Contact the AREC Academic Advisor for support with navigating the internship for academic credit process.
How to Find an Internship
You have several resources available to support your internship search, including:
- CALES Career Center: schedule an appointment and attend workshops for resume, cover letter and professional development support for roles that align with your interests and major.
- Handshake: Handshake is the #1 way college students find jobs. It is a free online career hub that gives all students access to job and internship postings, career fair and employer events, employer pages with peer reviews, and more!
- LinkedIn: join the social networking site for building professional connections and searching for open opportunities.
- AgCareers: find internships in the agriculture industry.
Internship Course Enrollment
Academic credit for an internship may be earned by completing the course requirements set by the course instructor including but not limited to a final report, and successfully completing the agreed upon internship hours of work with the internship organization. Enrollment is not required to participate with an organization as an intern. Student interns can be paid or unpaid.
For each unit of credit enrolled, the student must complete a minimum of 45 hours of work with the organization, for a typical three unit enrollment in an internship course, a minimum of 135 hours of work is required.
How to Earn Academic Credit for an Internship
To earn credit for an internship, a student must do the following prior to the beginning of the internship.
Internship Enrollment Deadlines
- For internships to be completed in Summer, the student and internship supervisor must complete all steps and submit all forms no later than May 1 each year.
- For internships to be completed in Spring, the steps and forms must be completed no later than December 15 for the following spring semester.
- For internships to be completed in the Fall, the steps and forms must be completed no later than August 1.
Steps to Earn Credit
- Create a résumé
- Seek organizations interested in accepting interns, and apply for the position.
Ideally your internship should be in an area that will benefit your future career goals, but this is not a requirement. Internships for general degree credit can be with any organization for agricultural and resource economics majors. The CALES Career Center and Student Engagement & Career Development (SECD) have resources to help you find and apply to internships.
Check with the AREC academic advisor to discuss enrollment options into either AREC 293/393/493/593/693 or CALES 293/393/493 for credit.
Professor Zuo will be the Agricultural and Resource Economics internship course instructor for AREC 293/393/493/593/693, unless you specify otherwise:
- AREC 293 allows for up to 8 units of undergraduate credit.
- AREC 393 allows for up to 8 units of undergraduate credit.
- AREC 493 allows for up to 6 units of undergraduate credit.
- AREC 593 allows for up to 6 units of graduate credit.
- AREC 693 allows for up to 8 units graduate credit.
Once you have met with your advisor, you should submit the necessary forms:
- Internship Online Portal Form. Student intern will enter the required information and upload the completed below documents within the Portal Form.
- Internship Work Plan Student intern and internship supervisor will complete this document. Internship supervisor will send back to the student the finalized version for submission. Student intern will upload this completed document within the Portal Form.
Once the application has been submitted, you are to email Dr. Na Zuo (nazuo@arizona.edu) or the faculty member you have chosen to request an appointment to review the internship, hours you plan to work and how many units you will earn, as well as the deadline for the final report.
Within your appointment with the faculty member, you will identify the nature and scope of the project to be completed. This is to be a discussion between the student and the supervising faculty member. You will be given guidelines for your work and assignments for the course. The course is pass/fail and does not calculate into your UA GPA.
At the end of the internship, provide a short summary and at least 1 photo of you during the internship so that we may highlight your experience for continuing and prospective AREC students.
Supervisor and Student Responsibilities
- Complete the supervisor relevant portions of the required document: Internship Work Plan. The student intern should send you these forms with their portions already completed.
- Report to this department any changes to the internship, including any change regarding the participation of the student intern performing the assigned internship duties.
- Complete the required document listed above and submit within the Internship Online Portal Form, including the uploading of the completed Work Plan document. The completed forms should have both your signature and the site supervisor's signature.
- Complete the review appointment with Professor Zuo (or other agreed upon faculty member), this step is required prior to enrollment occurring.
- Submit to AREC course instructor the final report by the agreed upon deadline in order to earn the final grade of 'P' for passing or 'S' for Superior. If the final report is not submitted the student will earn the grade of 'F' for Failure.
- S, P, F are not GPA calculated grades.