Internships
The Center for Career Discovery and Development coordinates Georgia Tech’s Internship Program. The program provides practical work experience in a professional setting, on-campus or off-campus, related to the student’s field of study. Internships are a partnership among students, employers, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Internships are single-semester, paid, major-related work experiences designed to help students understand the “real world” applications of their academic studies. However, many students will work multiple internships during the course of their undergraduate career, which might be with the same or different employers. Opportunities are available during the summer, fall, and spring semesters and require a commitment of full-time or part-time employment for a minimum of 14 weeks during the spring and fall semesters or 8 weeks during the summer semester. Upon request, students can be enrolled in INTN tuition-free and non-credit courses in order to track and display their hours worked on their transcript.
Co-Ops (Cooperative Education)
Cooperative Education, or “Co-op,” is a unique partnership among employers, students, and the university whereby students work in paid, planned, and supervised work experiences in business, industry, education, and government while earning academic credit. Georgia Tech’s Cooperative Education Program allows students to alternate semesters as a full-time student with semesters of full-time paid work and provides students with a co-op designation upon their diploma. In addition to providing experiences outside of academia, the Co-op program can provide the student with full-time research work within a Georgia Tech faculty member’s lab if the faculty member is agreeable. Neuroscience majors participating in the Co-op program must plan course schedules very carefully, since courses required for a degree in Neuroscience may not always be offered during the at-school semester. This will be more of a problem when the at-school semester occurs during the summer semester.
Serve-Learn-Sustain
Serve-Learn-Sustain is a campus-wide academic initiative working with all six colleges to offer students opportunities inside and outside the classroom to collaborate with diverse partners – across the community, non-profit, government, academic, and business sectors – on key sustainability challenges. Through SLS, students use the knowledge and skills they are acquiring at GT to help “create sustainable communities.” SLS actively participates in two professional networks: AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) and the Global RCE Network (Regional Centers of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development, affiliated with United Nations University).
Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP)
The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program is a transformative approach to enhancing higher education by engaging undergraduate and graduate students in ambitious, long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary project teams that are led by faculty. The program has been rigorously evaluated and refined over more than two decades. In VIP, teams of undergraduate students – from various years, disciplines, and backgrounds – work with faculty and graduate students in their areas of scholarship and exploration. Undergraduate students earn academic credit for their work and have direct experience with the innovation process, while faculty and graduate students benefit from the extended efforts of their teams.