CPEInternships HFE

Internships HFE

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Objective

An internship in the master Human Factors and Engineering Psychology (HFE) allows the student to apply the theoretical knowledge into practice. The main objective is to create practical and innovative solutions, for existing and new technologies, from the human viewpoint. The student achieves this by looking into an organizational issue and formulating an internship-assignment. Next, the student works on a complex assignment, in terms of problem analysis and goal-driven. The demands of the assignment are similar to those of a master thesis.

Internship-assignment

The internship-assignment needs to be a project or assignment which is normally executed by a cognitive psychologist and where the organization who is offering the internship is in need of. The quality of the internship-assignment needs to be in line with the level of knowledge and skills of which a student in the masters is expected of (academic level). Deepening through use of academic literature is thereby required. Examples of appropriate internship-assignment are:

Size of internship

An internship has the size of 10 EC or 280 hours. In the master’s program the internship is usually embedded in one block, a ten week period. The internship shall include three or four days a week (28 hours). In consideration with the organization which is offering the internship, it is possible to combine the internship with a master thesis at the given company. Such a combination provides more space for depth in the research (35 EC or 980 hours) and the student will produce an academic paper, next to internship activities.

Guidance of the internship

During the internship the student will be guided by both an external supervisor and an internal supervisor. The company who is offering the internship assigns an external supervisor who is responsible for the care, guidance and supervision of the student as well as maintaining contact with the internal supervisor and/or internship coordinator at the UT. The external supervisor is academic educated and by preference a cognitive psychologist. The internal supervisor form the UT is a teacher at the department ‘Cognitive Psychology and Ergonomics’ (CPE), who is responsible for the content supervision and grading of the student.

Contact

Marlise Westerhof
Internship coordinator
m.w.westerhof@utwente.nl
+31 (0)53 489 5867

Alumnus Lennart Overkamp about his internship at Philips Lighting

Alumnus Sophie Spitters about her study and internship