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How to Apply

  • All students must meet the eligibility requirements and agree to abide by the Student Ethics Agreement (446k PDF). Credits must be registered during the semester the work is being performed. Rutgers will always charge for credits. This includes Experiential Learning credits. If you want the credits/course on your transcript, you have to pay for them. Summer internships will be charged according to Rutgers Summer Session tuition and fees.
  • The Job – Prior to applying for SPIN Experiential Learning credits, students must find and secure a job or internship on their own. Jobs or internships may be part-time, full-time, paid, or unpaid. Work that will be performed by the student must be directly related to their major or career goals. The student must be performing meaningful work of educational value in the project areas for which the internship is designed. If you are looking to get credit for a job or internship you have already been working at for awhile, your learning goals must focus on something that differs from your current tasks and responsibilities.  Your supervisor must be a willing participant.  Handshake will reach out to them via email to approve your experience for credit.  Your supervisor will also be asked to submit a mid-semester evaluation and a final evaluation where they certify your hours worked.  It is critical your supervisor can receive and respond to emails from the Handshake system.
  • Faculty Sponsor – Students must find a faculty sponsor from the department of their major. Biological Science majors should contact Dr. Anne Carr-Schmid. The student must meet with the sponsor to discuss the internship prior to submitting the SPIN online application. The sponsor will make sure the student is performing appropriate work and will help the student to formulate their learning goals/objectives.
  • The Learning Goals – Prior to filling out the SPIN online form, the student must work with their work supervisor and faculty sponsor to establish 3 learning goals. Each goal must be formatted into 3 parts:  1) What is your goal?  2) How you will go about meeting that goal, and then  3) How you will demonstrate to your supervisor/faculty sponsor/SPIN Office that the goal has been met?  Goals must be specific and measurable.  You will submit these goals in the Handshake form.
  • Submitting your online application – Once you have discussed requirements and learning goals with both your work supervisor and your faculty sponsor, login to Handshake and select “Career Center” from the navigation menu and then “Experiences”.  Choose “Submit an Experience”, then from the “Experience Template” drop-down choose “SEBS SPIN”, and then proceed to complete the rest of the form. Your form should be reviewed by the SPIN Office within a week. You will receive a notification via Handshake with information on how to register via WebReg (course, index, and SPNs) once your experience has been approved.  This information can be found in the “Comments” section of your form.  PLEASE CHECK YOUR COMMENTS SECTION FREQUENTLY!  If there are any issues with your application, they will be conveyed to you in the COMMENTS section of your form.  It is IMPERATIVE you monitor the approval process to make sure that your form is approved in a timely matter.  Check in with your faculty sponsor and then your work supervisor to make sure that they are looking for emails from Handshake.  The form will show “Approved” once everyone has approved the experience.
  • Grading is Pass or No Credit. A grade of Pass is based on the following:
    • Successful completion of the work experience during the dates agreed upon with the employer. Students registered for 3 credits must work a minimum of 160 hours during the semester in which they are registered. Students registered for 6 credits must work at least 750 hours over 6 months and would register for credits during whichever month a majority of the hours will fall.
    • Positive evaluations/feedback from the employer. Work supervisors will receive a mid-semester evaluation and a final evaluation via email which must be filled out and submitted back to the SPIN Office.
    • Submission of a student experience evaluation at the end of the semester.
    • Submission of a satisfactory synthesis paper due to the faculty sponsor by the last day of classes for the semester or whenever the minimum hour requirement has been met. The paper must meet college-level standards, be double-spaced, and should be 5-7 pages (students registered for 3 credits) or 7-9 pages (students registered for 6 credits). See more specifics on the paper and grading rubric here (695k PDF).
  • Once the faculty sponsor has read the paper and is satisfied with the work, they should email Kristen Lester at kaf38@rutgers.edu.
  • Responsibility – If at any point during the semester there is any change in your job/internship (new supervisor, change in responsibilities, loss of job, etc.) you must inform both the SPIN Office and your faculty sponsor immediately.