2	Definitions and concepts

2.1	Definitions

In this manual the term ’external project’ is used to indicate either a final B.Sc. assignment carried out outside the university or a work placement. It is a training period at the end phase of a programme (either B.Sc. or M.Sc.), in which the student develops activities under the supervision of an employee of a company, institute or university that offers the assignment. In general these activities will consist of partipicating in some fundamental research or in the development of a product, process or system. The level of the work should be comparable with that of a recently graduated person (B.Sc. or M.Sc.). Good support from the company, institute or university is therefore considered a must, and in general the mentor will give more support to a student than to an average employee in the organisation.

The employer is an external organisation (company, research institute, university) where the student is doing his/her external project.

The mentor is the person within the organisation that supervises the student and fills in the assessment form (appendix 3A or B).

The UT supervisor is a member of the scientific staff at the UT who supervises from a distance and assesses the quality and the content of the external project.

The co-ordinator is the person within the faculty who co-ordinates the external projects. In some of the departments the co-ordinator is part of an administrative unit which offers assistance for organisational matters, such as the application for financial support (see chapter 6).

The mobiliteitsoverleg (MO) is a consultative body for student mobility and is formed by the co-ordinators (see appendix 8) and support staff of all faculties. This assembly has a co-ordinating task regarding external projects from the UT students both inside the Netherlands and abroad and for foreign students doing external training at the UT. In order to achieve this, the assembly maintains a close link with businesses and government. The MO works together with the International Office (IO) regarding grants from TMF (Twente Mobility Fund) (See chapter 6).

The student counsellor is the person who advises students in matters that do not specifically pertain to education (such as study financing, the OV-card).

The International Office (IO) is the central office that engages in internationalisation. Students can ask general questions about going and living abroad. See http://intoffice.utwente.nl/

2.2	Objectives

The objective of an external project is to teach the student to function independently in a real life situation at graduate level in order to apply and increase their knowledge and competences. This knowledge and these competences are not only related to the student’s field of specialisation, but also to people’s skills and to communication (both verbal and written) skills, possibly in a foreign language.

To reach this objective the following conditions apply:

·	There must be some correlation between the student’s academic background and the work experience being offered, such that the work experience can be classed as useful for prospective employers in the student’s field of study.

·	The student needs to experience how his/her knowledge and competences can be applied in practice.

·	The assignment must be in the field of the applied (technical) sciences and can be broad. Fundamental work in research as well as product development and production can be eligible.

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The implementation of the assignment must be successfully completed or partial completed. Where, the final report must contain useful information for the employer. In general, the report will serve to completely inform the possible successor about the reached state of affairs, and areas for further work.

·	A member of the scientific staff at the university (generally from the same programme) must also be able to judge the assignment.

2.3	External project in practice

During the implementation of the assignment the technical, applied or scientific aspects (or a mixture of all three) are considered to be the most important. As you are working together with new people in an unknown environment, it is important to see how you function with ‘people and work’ to the benefit of the organisation. Many programmes ask you to pay attention to this aspect in your report – often in the form of a reflective report or an evaluation form.