Internship

Internship is a good opportunity to get first-hand experience in a real working environment.

the six credit point course in our programme, HIK6431.HT - Practice, is a good opportunity to get first-hand experience in a real working environment. It permits to apply subject-specific knowledge, as well as  transferable skills acquired during other courses of the programme and analyse one’s own skills and knowledge, both prior to and after the traineeship. It can also be an opportunity to try out one’s ‘dream work’ for real, to test ways of applying a seemingly theoretical discipline in “real life”, to pinpoint further development needs or even to discover something completely new about a  workplace.

The internship placement supervisors have especially valued the trainees’ ability to  show initiative, problem-solving orientation, empathy, efficiency at teamwork, good oral and written language skills, ability to take a leadership role, motivation, willingness to learn, good social skills and self discipline.

Below you will find some stories of our students, a list of other places where our students have carried our their internship, and some guidelines for doing your own internship.
 

Stories of our students

Ramona Deville spent her four month internship with the German Studies of Tallinn University, supervised by Aigi Heero, and gained a lot of new and insightful experiences - especially connected to teaching, which meant that even as a native speaker she was not bored in German class. Read what Ramona writes about her experience.

Ajibola Jerome Imezerua discovered that doing his internship in a technology company Swappie, supervised by Marcelline Anwi, can enhance transferable skills like communication, problem-solving and digital skills. Read what Jerome writes about his experience.

Arina Aleksejeva had always though that working in a museum would be boring but found it to be quite different as she got involved in arranging an exhibition and preparing some teaching and learning materials at Tallinn Russian Museum, supervised by Jelena Tšekulajeva.
Read what Arina writes about her experience.

Suzanna Eisel has always dreamt about working for a publishing house and had her dream fulfilled when she joined Tallinn University Press for her traineeship, supervised by Rebekka Lotman. Read what Suzanna writes about her experience.

Trinh Tuong had to remain in her home country, Vietnam, because of the pandemic and could not travel back to Estonia. Rather than being inactive, she decided to use this situation and do her traineeship with an international company Happy International Service Enterprise, supervised by Chien-Ya Hsu. 
Read what Trinh writes about her experience.
 

RJ Malabanan sought for international and local internship places and sent out many requests to different institutions yet found himself empty-handed after all the effort. As a dedicated student he asked our staff for help and ended in, what might be considered a dream internship place for many, Estonian Public Broadcasting, supervised by Maarja Merivoo-Parro. Read what RJ writes about his experience.

Other places of internship

 

 

Your own internship explained step-by-step

According to the nominal division of the study programme, internship takes place in the 5th semester of your studies. However, you may do your internship earlier, in the 3rd-4th semester, or during the summer.

  • You should find your internship organisation on your own. Please double check the suitability with the programme administrator Julia Kuznetski, or ask some help from Internationalisation coordinator Maris Peters. If you need some help it is useful for us to know what kind of traineeship you would like to do or in what type of organisation. Often it also helps if the contact is established by us as the university representatives rather than by you as ‘just another student’.
  • When your internship place is accepted by us, please do not forget that registration in ÕIS for HIK6431.HT - Practice is needed. Instruction and orientation is also provided in the first class of the Internship. The rest of the work is done independently. 
  • Fill in the pre-internship paperwork and negotiate your tasks and work schedule with your internship supervisor.
  • Participate in your internship, stick to all the agreements, keep your internship supervisor informed of all the problems (falling ill etc). Fill in your traineeship diary.
  • Finish off your internship, fill in paperwork required after it. Collect your supervisor assessment.
  • Prepare a slideshow  and participate in the final seminar (the last class of the semester).
  • Be ready to share your story and pictures on our homepage!

p.s. Don't forget to explore Erasmus traineeship options!