Internships

Based on need for industry experience and greater understanding of biological areas, all BICB Ph.D. graduate students are required to complete a minimum of 120 hours of lab rotations and/or industrial internships (collectively referred to as internships). Students may register for BICB 8960 if they wish to receive credit for the internship. Registration is not required, in particular if the internship is done during the summer or outside of the University of Minnesota.

A lab rotation in an academic or clinical lab that focus on the life or health sciences will allow students to become more familiar with experimental methods and thus will increase their understanding of data, including their acquisition and quality control. The purpose of an industrial internship is to give the student some industry experience. We do not require lab rotations or industrial internships to result in publications.

The BICB Graduate Program maintains a list of approved internship partners for industrial internships and lab rotations. The current list includes

• University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Hormel Institute
• IBM
• Mayo Clinic

We will add other organizations to the list of approved organizations as opportunities arise, and potential organizations can be suggested by graduate students and faculty members. The steering committee will conduct a review to decide on whether to add an organization to the list of approved ones.

The BICB DGS/Associate DGS will work actively with IBM and Mayo Clinic to identify internship opportunities for BICB graduate students. In addition, graduate students may identify internship opportunities on their own. All graduate students need to send a project proposal for internships to the DGS/Associate DGS. Approval of a graduate student proposal to conduct an internship at a specific organization must be preceded by the steering committee’s approval of the organization. The project proposal must contain the following sections

1. Goals and objectives, including how the internship will advance the student’s career
2. Project plan, including estimated time that will be spent on the project
3. Planned outcomes
4. Mentoring plan, including a short CV of the mentor unless the mentor is either a member of the BICB program or has had prior BICB graduate students as interns within the previous five years.
5. Support Letters:
   1. For organizations other than the University of Minnesota, a letter or contract is required to ensure that the organization is willing to provide the industrial internship or lab rotation experience. In addition, the mentor must provide a letter that s/he is willing to mentor the student on the proposed project for the duration of the project.
   2. If an internship is conducted at the University of Minnesota, a letter of the faculty mentor who will oversee the project is required to indicate willingness to mentor the student on the proposed project.

The DGS/Associate DGS in consultation with the student’s advisor(s) will decide on whether to approve the proposal. The approval is to be conducted in a timely manner and shall not last more than two weeks after the program receives a proposal to conduct an internship at an approved organization. If an organization is not yet approved, the entire approval process, including approval of the organization, shall not take more than four weeks.

Internship mentors need not be members of the BICB graduate faculty. To monitor the quality of the internship, the graduate student and his/her advisor agree to meet regularly during the internship to review whether goals and objectives are being met.

Successful completion of the internship will be monitored by the DGS. A final report addressing proposal sections (1)‐(4) must be submitted by the graduate student to the DGS no later than four weeks after completion of the internship. This report will be reviewed by the internship mentor and the student’s advisor/co‐advisors, a recommendation of whether the goals and objectives of the internship were met must be submitted to the DGS by the internship mentor and the advisor/co‐advisors within four weeks after receipt of the report. The DGS will then based on the recommendation file a report that will be placed in the student’s file to indicate whether the student has completed the internship successfully. If the internship was not successfully completed, the internship mentor and the advisor/co‐advisor must explain why the internship was not successfully completed and what steps the student needs to take to complete the internship successfully.

Conflict resolution: In case of any conflicts, the graduate student and/or the student’s internship mentor should contact the DGS who will help resolve the conflict and will assist in connecting the student and/or internship mentor to appropriate offices within the University in case the conflict cannot be resolved with the help of the DGS.