Internships are part of their education for many people, whether in high school, during their studies or in the phase of vocational reorientation: they often expect an internship report following an internship. In it, the former trainee is to reflect and write down his experiences from this period. What such a transcription can look like, a template and many tips for writing your internship report you can read here …

What is the purpose of an internship report?

The aim of an internship is to provide insights into the professional life of an area. Ideally, knowledge that has already been imparted in theory at school or at university is applied and deepened in a practical way.

Mostly an area is tested which could become a daily routine for the trainee in his future professional life. In order to be able to classify what has been experienced and learned, it is necessary to reflect on it. The internship report is therefore often referred to as a reflected activity and experience report.

Another feature of the internship report is that it prepares for the writing of scientific papers, because the composition is often comparable. Often it serves the teacher or lecturer as an aid in the grading or is a prerequisite for the successful completion of a module.

An internship report should, among other things, clarify the following questions:

• What did a typical working day look like?
• Which tasks were easy for me?
• Which heavy?
• What have I learned?
• Which areas would I like to deepen?
• What working hours / working conditions did I have?
• How did others meet me?

First of all the most important: The following tips should be a basic help for the reader and the reader how to write such an internship report. However, there is no universal standard for it. Certainly, a university internship report must meet other criteria than a report on a student internship.

What specific expectations the teacher, mentor or lecturer has about the completed internship report must be clarified in advance. Frequently, lecturers publish handouts that give you an overview of how to write an internship report and what formalities to follow.

If such a handout exists, you must adhere to the guidelines there. For all those who have no handout, the following tips can give an orientation.

Structure and structure of the internship report

The structure of an internship report essentially consists of three parts: The first part is the course of the internship and is also referred to as a descriptive part. General information about the internship and the company in which you completed your internship are given here.

The second part of the internship report contains your placement of the internship. How do you rate the internship process? What did you like, what would you change? Finally, in the third part you evaluate the internship, which role it plays for your further career choice or study.

If there are no exact requirements for the internship report, you can structure the structure as follows:

Cover sheet

It contains all the important information about yourself, the school or university and the internship, ie: internship, internship period. It is titled “Internship Report”. For an internship report within the scope of a practical semester, a different title may be desired, depending on the subject.

Contents

Here the individual chapters with the associated page numbers are listed. Counted according to scientific criteria only from the introduction, the cover page and the table of contents themselves do not count.

Introduction

Write here what gave the impulse for this internship, what motivation you had and why you chose this company. Describe your procedure here, how you became aware of the internship position. You can also include formal aspects here, such as the type of internship, such as “As part of my two-week student internship at …”.

Bulk

The main part of the internship report begins with a company portrait. Here is the internship provider presented, so: the company history, development of the company, number of employees and information on performance and objectives of the company.

Interns can ask their mentor about these details and / or get more information on the company’s homepage and flyers. Next is the actual description of the internship. Here is an overview of what your tasks consisted of, which activities were assigned to you.

The third part of the main part then contains a detailed account of what a typical working day looks like. The internship report should also be filled with representative examples that further illustrate the internship. Pictures, sketches and diagrams are also suitable to visually loosen up the whole thing. In internship reports on practical semesters, however, it may be that image material in the body text is not desired. In this case it belongs in the appendix.

Ending

In this section the trainees are expected to give a judgmental conclusion. Think back to the beginning: were your expectations fulfilled? To what extent does the internship help with the choice of career or in the further course of studies? Has it possibly changed some ideas completely, so that consequences result from it – new orientation, demolition or vice versa an activity as a working student?

At this point, it’s not about simply writing down something that you think the teacher or lecturer wants to hear. Rather, a critical self-reflection is expected, which can certainly draw a less positive conclusion. It is important that you can name the experience and the resulting consequences for you.

Bibliography

In this penultimate point you list where you get additional information, so your sources. For example, anyone who has learned about company history in books from the library names the literature.

Attachment

Here, as mentioned above – depending on the specifications of the teacher or lecturer – the pictures, sketches or copies into it. Also not missing is the internship certificate, possible work samples, an internship certificate (if specified by the school) and a statement that you have written the internship report independently.

The right preparation and follow-up for the report

Preparation

Already during the internship you should take notes! Depending on how long your internship lasts, you then have difficulties to recapitulate the experience. In addition, many things fall into oblivion, if there is no fixed deadline and the writing of the internship report is delayed.

In your own interest, you should write down in a little notebook everything that strikes you during the internship: What funny events were there? Which colleague was annoyed? Which employees of the company were particularly helpful and so on.

Those who want to be particularly clever, work through the notes at the end of the day, and already add something to the internship report. This definitely saves work at the end of the internship and avoids the danger of forgetting something.

Postprocessing

Be sure to read your internship report. Nothing is more annoying than giving an internship report full of spelling and grammatical mistakes. While software such as Microsoft Office Word has a spell checker, it does not spot all the bugs, so you’re on the safe side when a friend reads your lab report before submitting.

In addition, you can give your mentor, boss or internship supervisor the job to read. Here you can get some valuable tips and suggestions for improvement. In addition, the internship report provides insight into your perceptions and may be of interest if you wish to apply to this company later. Not a few bosses are happy about a corresponding feedback.