Greetings,

Im the Undergraduate Internship Coordinator for LUCs CS Department, and I want to share information
with you about how to set up an internship for the Spring semester or one of the Summer sessions. If
you have specific questions after reading this email, feel free to contact me directly at
ryacobellis@luc.edu or at internships@cs.luc.edu.
First of all, having a CS approved internship allows you to earn up to a maximum of 6 total credit hours
for all CS internship courses combined toward your practicum requirement; once you have received 6
internship practicum credits thats all you can have. However, you can earn additional internship
credits, they just wont count toward your practicum requirement.
Here is a brief table giving an overview of the steps you need to go through; these are described in more
detail below:
Step
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

You
Hirer (external / LUC)
Review COMP 391
Secure an internship
Advertise openings
Get CS approval
Fix any academic hold
Assure credit hour fit
Fill out & email MOU Jointly fill out MOU
Fill in LOCUS info
Perform the work!
Create CS report
Engaged Learning rpt.

Oversee your work

Evaluate performance

CS Department
Publish course info
Advertise openings
Review opportunity

Review MOU info

Approve & register
Approve when done
Give internship grade

Comments
See description link
Your responsibility
Complements studies
May require payment
See limits below
Scan/photo + email
You cannot register
For safety / support
No internship class!
By end of semester
2-page double space

Steps 1 through 6 must be completed at least a few days before the end of Spring/Summer registration
so we have time to register you for your internship you cannot register yourself for a CS internship.
The first thing you need to do to prepare for an undergraduate internship is review the course
description for COMP 391 here: http://www.luc.edu/cs/academics/courses/courselisting/comp391/.
This tells you the additional steps you need to go through in setting up an internship. Note that you are
responsible for finding an internship opportunity either within Loyola or from an external hiring
organization, although we are happy to advise you about how to find a position using resources like
LinkedIn or RamblerLink. The position you find does not have to be classified as an internship as long as
it complements your CS course of study and provides real-world experience using CS-related skills.
Please make sure that any academic hold on your account has been lifted before applying to the CS
Department for an internship otherwise we will not be able to register you! This and exceeding the
allowed number of credit hours are two of the most frequent obstacles to CS internship registration
(beyond finding a position).
Each earned internship credit hour requires 50 hours of work during the internship, so typical
internships are for 150+ hours = 3 credit hours or 300+ hours = 6 credit hours. You must be sure that the
number of credit hours you want to register for will fit in your allowed semester or Summer session

limit! Typically you can take up to 18 credit hours during the Fall or Spring semester, and if your
cumulative GPA is 3.0 or better you can usually have your advisor increase that limit to 21 credit hours in
order to accommodate any extra internship hours; be sure do this before semester registration ends.
(Note that there are other ways to earn CS practicum credit; please see the CS academic information for
your course of study at http://www.luc.edu/cs for details.)
To register for an internship, you and your hiring organization will need to fill out a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU the COMP 391 course description has both a Word and pdf version of this
document), then scan it or take a picture of it (both pages), and email that information to me at
internships@cs.luc.edu along with a brief description of the objectives and type of work you will be
doing and how that fits in with your course of CS study. This needs to happen by the end of the
registration period for the Summer session or semester when you want to be registered for the
internship, and you can send that information as early as you want, eg, now for the Spring semester or
in early 2017 for a Summer session. The end of late registration for Spring semester is January 23. The
end of late registration for the last Summer session, Session C, will be June 5-6, 2017.
Once I receive your information I will review it and either approve your registration in COMP 391 for
your requested number of credit hours or else tell you what additional information I need, or what steps
you need to go through. Ideally I should receive the initial set of information for your requested
internship at least one week before registration closes for that Spring semester or Summer session!
Here is the simple rule about which semester an internship qualifies for: an internship for a particular
semester or Summer session must start and end before the end of that period, and an internship report
must be turned in by the last finals week of that semester or Summer session (or soon after that see
below). This means that a Spring internship can start now, or could already be in progress. Most of the
work hours for the internship must be completed during the semester or Summer session when the
internship is registered for example, if you work in an internship during both the Spring semester and
the following Summer session then you must have the internship registered during the period which has
the larger number of work hours, or else you have to split the internship into two separate registrations,
one for each period.
One other thing you have to do once I approve your registration in COMP 391 is to fill in information on
LOCUS about the internship. According to Loyolas Academic Internship Program Manager, Danielle
Forchette, All Loyola undergraduate students enrolled in an engaged learning course like an internship
are required to enter their engaged learning site information and learning objectives in LOCUS to
substantiate the experience. This information is used for institutional research, documentation, and risk
management purposes. If you need assistance completing this entry, please follow the tutorial at:
http://www.luc.edu/experiential/forstudents/locustutorial/; or, contact experiential@luc.edu for help.
It is critical that you provide this data so if something happens to you at your work site, Loyola can
support you in the best way possible.
At the end of the internship you will need to create your internship report and email it to me (the MoU
has more details), and your hiring organization must send me a short email evaluating your performance
during the internship. After receiving both of those I will assign a grade for your internship. If I dont
receive both of those pieces of information by the last finals week of the semester you will receive an
Incomplete in COMP 391 until I have received all the required materials, and then I will enter your grade
for the internship.

Note that, other than providing the initial MoU and job description, filling in the LOCUS information,
sending the final report and email, and filling in an Experiential Learning form, you only have to
complete the work specified in the MoU during the semester in order to earn credit for your internship;
there are no additional class sessions that you have to attend for a CS internship. You will also be
required to answer a couple of questions at the end of your internship about how your Engaged
Learning activity during the internship connects to Loyolas mission statement; here is more
information about that:
Loyola University Chicagos mission statement
We are Chicago's Jesuit Catholic university a diverse community seeking God in all things and
working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.
In an effort to assess the Engaged Learning University requirement, we ask all students enrolled
in an Engaged Learning course to complete this reflection:
Referencing Loyolas mission statement above, compose a written reflection (at least 2 pages,
double-spaced) that connects your in-class and out-of-class experience, responding to the
following:
How did your Engaged Learning experience help you to connect to the mission?
How did the Engaged Learning experience in this course impact your personal,
intellectual, civic, and/or professional development?
Please submit your completed reflection in Taskstream.
Please direct questions to engagedlearning@luc.edu. For more information about the Engaged
Learning University Requirement, please visit www.luc.edu/engagedlearning.
If you have any questions about this process, please contact me at internships@cs.luc.edu.
Dr. Yacobellis
LUC CS Undergraduate Internship Coordinator