Engineering Internships with Projects: A Workplace-Learning Model for Improving Student´s Success and Performance

In the past decade there has been lot of discussion on how synergy could be brought between the industry expectations and the competencies possessed by the students. One of the approaches being followed by majority of the institutions is to get project ideas and inputs from the industries and industry partners for various projects as a part of the curriculum intervention. These interventions could be either as course projects or as capstone projects. Even though majority of the courses/ curriculum deliveries try to map the program outcomes to the competencies as required by the accreditation agencies, there are certain inherent advantages of engineering internship which are not available in traditional resident instructional environment. The assessments of program outcomes by the external evaluators (industry personnel´s) for assessing hard to assess outcomes in resident environment, like engaging in life long learning, ability to understand professional, ethical and social responsibilities, contemporary professional, societal and global issues are particularly valuable. This paper discusses how the capstone projects course and the industry internship with projects course, although two totally different ways could accomplish similar outcomes. This paper also discusses the interaction experience with various industries and student´s of various departments. It is encouraging to know that Internship with projects positively affects the student´s in dimensions like (i) increasing the probability of promotion and advancement in hire (ii) duration as a trainee after being hired (iii) stipend during the internship period increases the confidence (iv) work experience.