Internship

The 1-credit Internship consists of an Internship placement and a Research Essay of approximately 30 pages, discussing the Internship project in relation to issues which have been the subject of the student's research in the course of the year. The Research Essay will be marked by the student’s supervisor and assigned a number grade, on the condition that a favourable Internship report has been received from the Internship Placement supervisor. It is up to the student, with the help of his or her supervisor, to arrange the Internship placement but the program has already negotiated a number of Internship placements in principle. These are in addition to Internships which will be available through the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College (see below).

Some Intermships Recently Completed or in Progress
  • editorial assistant at the Porcupine's Quill

  • assisting the Kawartha World Issues Centre to present information on climate change to the public

  • editing a play for publication by the 4th-Line Theatre Company

  • assisting Charles Foran in researching his recently published biography of Mordecai Richler

  • acting as a marketing intern at Tightrope Books

Humber in the Summer

An internship typically consists of 3 semesters, 2 semesters of courses, in the Fall/Winter session, followed by an internship and the completion of a Research Essay in the Summer Session. However there is also a four-semester option in collaboration with the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, consisting of 2 semesters of courses at Trent in the Fall/Winter session, followed by courses at Humber College in the Summer Session, and an internship and the completion of the Research Essay in the following Fall semester. Students choosing this option will earn an Ontario Graduate Certificate from Humber College in addition to their Master’s degree from Trent University. (See Admissions for details.) Please indicate if you are interested in the Humber option in your statement of interest.

 

Ongoing Internship Opportunities

The following internships are available on an on-going basis over the next few years:

Trent University Graduate Student Blogger

  • Producing a blog on behalf of the School of Graduate Studies which make students feel welcome and informs them about Trent, both before they apply to Trent and after they arrive.

Editorial Assistant at the Porcupine’s Quill

  • Assisting the book production process at one of Canada’s leading small publishers and, specifically, acting as a liaison between the Press and the editorial team of the Collected Works of P.K. Page at Trent University

Database Maintenance for Library and Archives Canada Mass Digitization Project

  • Assisting in the maintenance of a database for the Library and Archives Canada digitization project, whose aim is to digitize modernist literary manuscripts in the Archives.

Please indicate if you are interested in one of these internships in your statement of interest.

Schedule

The student and supervisor will meet as soon as possible to discuss the student’s project. In the case of the 3-semester option, the student and academic supervisor will work over the course of first term towards developing the Internship proposal. In some cases the academic supervisor will supervise the Internship directly (for example, when it involves an editing project directed by the academic supervisor). In most cases, though, there will be a separate Internship Placement supervisor. By late December or early January the student and supervisor(s) will fill out and sign an Internship Placement Agreement, a Work Education Placement Agreement/Post-Secondary and, where appropriate, a Research Protocol for Interviews (to be submitted at least 8 weeks before the Internship begins), copies of which will be submitted to the Graduate Office. In estimating the placement hours the assumption should be that the total Internship placement, which is the equivalent of a full credit, should involve approximately 250 hours, including time spent researching and writing the research essay. By the end of March students will make a public presentation of their Internship proposal at the Research and Professional Development Seminar. The internship will typically last for up to 3 months. It will generally take place in the third semester, although in some cases, depending on the nature of the project, it may begin earlier.

In the case of the 4-semester option, the procedure will be the same, but the Internship Placement Agreement will not be submitted until the end of the Summer semester and the presentation of the Internship proposal will take place at the beginning of the following Fall semester.

Samples of Completed Forms

 

Evaluation

At the end of the placement period, the Internship Placement supervisor will make a report on the placement to the Academic supervisor. If the report is satisfactory, the student will write the Research Essay and submit it at a time agreed upon with the Academic supervisor who will grade it by the end of August for the 3-semester option, December for the 4-semester option, at the latest.