What
The elective course 'internship' (6 credits) is executed (unpaid) in a company or a governmental institution not related to the university during the summer recess (6 weeks) between the first and second master year. Students will be engaged in normal working activities at a level corresponding to their final degree. After finishing the training, students have to write a report that is defended in front of a jury in the beginning of the second master year.
Why
The internship gives students the opportunity to be confronted with practical working situations outside the academic world. It allows students to explore a new working environment and conditions, to adapt to new situations and to train their skills in ‘lifelong learning’. Having internship experience on your CV is highly valued by future employers. Following competences are aimed at:
- to gain a practical understanding of the characteristics and insight into the multidisciplinarity of the bioinformatics domain,
- to acquire a better insight into the application domain of their field of study,
- to gain insight into the importance of the domain for the vocational field,
- to accomplish a well-defined task in an independent way by using domain knowledge,
- to independently study a novel problem and search for the correct solution,
- to write a technical scientific report,
- to orally present and defend a written report.
Testimonials
Read the blog of students that did their internship at ONTOFORCE in 2024 here."It offers valuable learning experience in bioinformatics: it provided hands-on experience in a non-academic environment."
"The topics I learned and performed are of much need in the bioinformatics field and would add up to my resume as well. The work I did was majorly done from a client-based perspective. So, apart from just completing the task for the sake of academics, I learnt certain whereabouts of satisfying the clients’ needs and modifying my approach as per that. I would definitely recommend my fellow students to do an internship!"
"The courses of the first year prepare us enough to understand the implementation of the used tools and enable us to easily learn new things during the internship. It was sometimes a bit challenging, but that is the best way to learn new things. All methods used were state-of-the-art. It was also good to see what other aspects than pure research could be done by a bioinformatician. The internship was a very nice experience, with good guidance throughout the process."