Internships are an integral part of your Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences and Engineering (SIE). It is an opportunity for you to join a company in Switzerland or abroad and to have an enriching experience while discovering the company culture.
The SIE internship must last a minimum of 8 weeks and a maximum of 6 months, and must be completed between the end of the Bachelor cycle, which must be passed, and the beginning of the Master Thesis. The student must have successfully completed the Engineering Internship and the Master Thesis to obtain the 30 credits attributed at the end of the 4th Master semester.
Internship’s goal:
- Immersion in the professional world of a company
- Awareness of the importance of teamwork
- Consideration of a company’s imperatives in its processes
- Putting into practice the knowledge acquired during the years of study
- Familiarization with the company’s processes and the requirements of the environmental engineering profession.
- Internal Rules of the SIE internships.
- Internship agreement (to be filled and signed before the internship’s start). To be signed by the internship supervisor of the company, by the SIE Professor and by the student. Then, please send a scanned version to the SIE Section: in French, in English
- Become a member of “International SOS” for medical assistance during your internship abroad. This is mandatory when you do your internship abroad.
- A technical and scientific report on the internship must be written by the student and submitted to the SIE internship supervisor no later than one month after the end of the internship.
- The report must include the following elements and should not be longer than 10 pages:
- a cover page
- a table of content and an introduction
- goals of the internship
- the applied methodologies and the obtained results and must also respect the company’s confidentiality guideline
- a conclusion
- Evaluation:
Towards the end of the internship, the internship supervisor and the student will receive email reminders to evaluate the company and intern respectively. The internship mentor will receive a notification once the evaluations have been completed by the internship mentor and the student.
Within a month after the internship ends, the student must submit the report to the internship mentor. The mentor will validate the internship based on the report and on the two evaluations (passed or failed) on the ISA portal “Administrator portal”.
Students are advised to use their own and personal contacts with companies likely to offer internships. Use connections from ENAC laboratories focusing on a specific field or activity.
Have a look at the “Internship portal” on IS Academia. This database allows companies to publish internship proposals focusing on different areas of expertise. It also allows students to look at all the internships that are specifically proposed to them. The SIE section provides a list of companies which have already hosted an SIE intern.
All internships that come from outside the internship portal must be approved by the Section. This procedure must be completed several months before the internship starts.
The internship registration is done online on IS Academia.
Once an internship is registered (status = registered), you must find an EPFL tutor and submit your file to the company.
Complete and sign three copies of the Internship Agreement, either in French or in English, and submit them to the SIE internship coordinator and to the host company’s internship supervisor. The student keeps the third copy.
Do not hesitate to contact the internship coordinator of the Environmental Sciences and Engineering section.
