internships

The purpose of the professional internship is to validate acquired competences in practice and to further develop these knowledge, skills and attitudes. Thanks to the professional internship, students develop their own professional network. In addition, the professional internship helps to develop personal growth, interpersonal competencies and to reflect on one’s own behaviour in an academic context in relation to the professional field. These first steps in the professional field also increase the students’ employability.

The internship can take place during the summer holidays before the start of the internship year (only in agreement with the supervisors and the internship coordinator), the first or the second semester of the internship year, depending of the availability of internship positions. The internship can take place abroad. The duration of the internship is (at least) 25 working days.

As a guideline, the programme equates one working day to 7.5 to 8 working hours, making the total duration of the professional internship 187.5 to 200 working hours. The student cannot derive any rights from this guideline.

The course Professional Internship comprises 6 credits and is situated in the second master’s year (hereinafter referred to as ‘the internship year’). Therefore, the students already have acquired substantial knowledge, skills and attitudes on complex urban environmental challenges and on the tools to address them.