What a curricular traineeship is and who can apply for one
The curricular traineeship is a 250-hour work experience, equivalent to 9 university credits aimed at integrating students’ academic and professional careers and allowing them to come into contact with the job environment.
The traineeship may consist in a work activity at a non university organisation (public or private company/institution, vocational and trade associations, etc.) or at a University body (Libraries, Museums, External Relations Office, other institutions for relations with foreign students and teachers, etc.).
The new format for the curricular regulations of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature provides a curricular traineeship for all students of all degree courses.
How to apply for a traineeship
To apply for a curricular traineeship, the student must have obtained at least 57 university credits, broken down as follows:
Only the students who have obtained the above-mentioned credits can apply for the curricular traineeship. Upon making his/her application, the student must also hand in a copy of his/her university exams booklet to the Traineeship Office, specifying his/her personal details. Once all the required documentation is received by the Traineeship Office, the student is deemed to be ready to start the traineeship, except where specified otherwise. Throughout the year applications are made for curricular traineeships, so no deadlines are set for the applications.
Once the application form ("modulo obiettivi") has been handed in, the Traineeship Commission is responsible for assigning the traineeship destination to the trainee. The trainee can point out two areas of interest to the Commission among those stated in the online form; the Commission will examine the application form but its decision will not be subject to the student's options.
To offer students the chance to carry out a student traineeship and to extend the traineeship opportunities of this Faculty, students are invited to promote and identify contacts with other new public institutions or private companies for the purposes of the curricular traineeship. The Traineeship Office will then be in charge of entering into an agreement with the suggested institution or company. A traineeship agreement is preliminary to the start-up of the traineeship. Each traineeship agreement will be deemed a framework agreement, not limited to the individual student alone.
Once the hosting institution or organisation has been identified, the type and method of the traineeship is agreed upon in a specific Traineeship Project between the student, the company/organisation coordinator (manager at the hosting company/organization or his/her representative) and the University tutor, in accordance with the student's study programme and the needs of the host company/organisation. The University traineeship tutor is a teacher from this Faculty who is appointed by the Commission (the student nonetheless has the right to indicate his/her own tutor, naturally after an interview with the teacher in question and upon the notification to the Traineeship Office via e-mail by the teacher). The tutor is responsible for the proper implementation of the traineeship. The original Traineeship Project documentation will be forwarded to the Traineeship Office, while a copy will be sent to the host company/organisation coordinator.
There may be an interval of 2 weeks/2 months from the presentation of the traineeship application to the actual start of the traineeship activity. This depends on factors such as the proposal of a new hosting organisation/company and the need to enter into an agreement, the availability of the company or institution to host the trainee during a certain period, the number of applications received by the Traineeship Office. Hence, it is advisable to apply for the curricular traineeship as soon as the necessary university credits have been obtained.
If the traineeship results are judged to be unsatisfactory or the planned activities are not completed, the Traineeship Commission will assign a new project to the student at another organisation/company at its sole discretion.
The traineeship activities will be recorded daily in the student's special log-book that he/she must apply for and collect from the Faculty’s Traineeship Office. In this logbook, the student must write down the days of work, the number of hours worked per day, and the activities carried out. It is important to note that the University insurance only covers the activities recorded in the logbook. Thus, if the student carries out additional or special tasks outside the specified workplace, these must be recorded accurately for insurance purposes.
At the end of the 250 hours, distributed according to the agreement with the host institution/organization, the student is required to assign to the Traineeship Office a booklet-diary and a brief report describing the activities carried out.
The log-book must be signed by the company/organisation coordinator and by the Faculty tutor; the report must be underwritten by the student and by the company/organisation coordinator (who must endorse the document with company or the organisation's stamp), and the Faculty tutor. The Traineeship Office will then take care to send all the documentation to the Traineeship Commission for registration, as required.
At the student's request, the company or the organisation coordinator may write up a report illustrating the trainee's results.
Students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature who work full-time can earn the 9 university credits corresponding to the curricular traineeship by carrying out other equivalent activities, in compliance with their study programme.
Only for those who have carried out or are carrying out working activities that are compatible with the curriculum, the activities may be recognized as curricular traineeship. The working student must apply in writing to the Traineeship Commission in which he/she sets out the activities/tasks carried out, asking for them to be recognised as activities that are compatible with the study programme. The application must be accompanied by a statement written up by the employer where the activities /tasks are described in detail. Once the documentation has been examined and approved, the Traineeship Commission will send it to the Faculty Board of Teachers for the full recognition and registration.
For further information and how to apply please contact the Traineeship Office.
Like other Faculty offices, the Traineeship Office considers email as the main information channel and advises all students to open a university email account as soon as possible, as it will not consider messages from other email accounts to be safe. All should therefore open a personal email account, which is a service offered by the University of Bologna.
If the student wants to personalise his/her professional profile, he/she should fill in the European CV format and show it to the host company/organisation when requested.