The Department of Biology offers its majors the opportunity to earn course credit for approved internships. A suitable internship is any intellectually challenging activity grounded in basic science that actively involves the student in the collection, analysis, and evaluation of data, or in other scholarly activities such as teaching biology. An internship typically is pursued at an off-campus site in conjunction with an extramural research or educational program. Examples of locations potentially suitable for an internship include research laboratories, field stations, zoos, aquariums, or museums. Although clinical experiences (e.g., work in physician's offices, hospital emergency rooms, or physical therapy facilities) are worthwhile, these are not suitable for internship credit, nor are enrichment activities such as non-credit courses.

In most cases, a research activity approved for internship credit will also count as a laboratory course. However, the Department will evaluate each internship for its suitability for laboratory credit. In any case, only one (1) of the upper-level laboratory courses required for the major may be filled by an internship; up to six total credits may be counted toward the 36 required of Biology majors. Any additional internship credit (up to 9, for an overall total of up to 15) must be counted as "free electives." An internship may be undertaken during either the academic year or the summer. Credits earned through an internship do require payment of Villanova tuition.

Requirements

To qualify for an internship, Junior and Senior Biology majors must:

• have a GPA of 3.0 or greater at the time of application.
• apply for approval of an internship through the Department of Biology before registering for the internship.

Lists of possible sites and the associated contact persons for internships:       

To apply for any internship (whether on the list or not), the student must submit:

• an application for internship credit through the Internship Program Office (requires junior or senior status and typically GPA  3.0 or greater)
• a Student Learning Goals and Internship Formulation Report
• the Internship Agreement in the Department of Biology (also available in the Department of Biology office)
• a proposal that fully describes the planned activities and objectives of their internship (submit by the third week of the semester or second week in summer; see the Internship Agreement above for further information)
• a supporting statement from the proposed supervisor Please submit copies of the elements above to both the Internship Program Office and Biology Internship Coordinator. Internships may count for three or six credits; each three credits require a minimum of 112 hours of participatory activity (8 hours per week for 14 weeks).
• Additional time will be required to fulfill the requirements specified by the Internship Program Office, including maintenance of a journal and completion of a final report.

To receive credit for the internship, the student’s performance on the journal and final report, as well as an evaluation of the student by the supervisor, must be deemed acceptable by a committee within the Department of Biology. Although the format of the final report may vary depending on the nature of the internship, a typical report should describe in detail the objectives and goals of the internship; how the objectives and goals were met; and any scientific interpretation or conclusions drawn from the experience. In the case of research projects, for example, the report should specifically include a description of the conceptual context/scope and objectives of the research, the methodology followed in the course of the research, the results obtained, and the interpretation of the results in the context of the project’s objectives.