STUDENT GUIDE
(2023 - 2024)
Bachelor's degree programme in
COMPUTER ENGINEERING (change programme)
Location: Torino
Class: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING
Internship
Internships are offered to students as the first real chance to gain experience in the world of work. An internship gives you the opportunity to put into practice what you have learned during your studies and it will help you decide about your future professional career. Politecnico di Torino promotes internships and guarantees insurance coverage both for civil liability and occupational injuries.

Before starting an internship, you need to include it in your Personal Study Plan/Annual Personal Study Plan in the academic year in which you would like to do your internship.

The documents and general rules for internships are published at this LINK
Below you can find the specific guidelines for each degree programme.

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GUIDELINES
The curricular internship is a training activity worth 10 or 12 Credits, corresponding to a workload of  250 or 300 hours in the hosting company. 
You will normally do your internship during your third year between March and September, with a timetable (weekly schedule) that you need to agree with your host company, taking into account the teaching calendar. Various solutions are possible, according to individual situations and agreements to be discussed with individual companies: 
  • part-time internship over 3 or 4 months starting in March;
  • full-time internship in the summer;
  • full-time internship starting in September/October;
  • Intermediate solutions from those listed above, such as, for example, a part-time internship from May to June, with full-time continuation until July;
  • Other solutions, as long as agreed and compatible with the expected number of hours.   
Prerequisites
You are allowed to include an internship in your study plan when you attend at least 100 credits. This is to avoid doing an internship too early, when knowledge and skills are still premature. Even if there are no explicit technical prerequisites, we suggest you carefully check the prerequisites described and/or required by the company when you choose and plan an internship.  
How to search for and choose an internship
You can choose an internship from a list of internships offered by Politecnico (on the web portal) or you can propose a company of your choice as long as you have already made an agreement with the company. Internship proposals and student-company assignments are therefore made through a mechanism that provides two possibilities: 
  • an initial phase of collecting proposals from companies, whose internship proposals are visible to all students on the teaching portal. You can apply for these internships, attaching your CV if you wish. After the company selects you and approves your internship, you can move to the next phase, the "training project";
  • following direct contacts between you and a company, it is possible that the two parties agree on the times, contents and methods of the internship.  After the signature of the Internship Agreement between Politecnico and the company (in case 'a' the company has already entered into the Agreement, in case 'b' it depends: if no Agreement has been signed yet, it has to be stipulated as a first step), you are allowed to start the procedure for signing the "training project" directly.
How to activate an internship
An internship is activated by stipulating a training project, as described in the section “computer procedure for managing internships”. The training project contains the title/topic and the timing of the internship and must be approved by the company (Company Tutor), by the Academic Tutor and the Internship Coordinator of your degree programme.
  • The Company Tutor is appointed by the company. He/she is responsible for planning the internship in detail and for monitoring its progress. The Company Tutor will also give a final evaluation;
  • The Academic Tutor is a professor from  Politecnico, belonging to the discipline areas of  the degree programme. He/she verifies that the internship starts in a proper way and also provides a final assessment (approval, as passed teaching module) of the internship. The Academic Tutor should be contacted in the event of any problems, but in principle it should not be considered as a "technical" contact person (unlike the Company Tutor) for the internship itself. In order to distribute the workload among the teachers who act as tutors, you are required not to mention the name of an academic tutor in the "training project" (except for special cases of previous agreement between company/student and teacher). The Academic Tutor will be indicated by Internship Coordinator of the degree programme.
  • The supervisor for training course placements is a teacher who carries out the tasks of organizing and managing the entire procedure for implementing curricular placements.

How to do an internship 
You must do your internship working in person at the company, with a calendar and timetable that are in line with the training project. 
The actual attendance must be reported on a "timesheet", according to the procedures described in the section "computer procedure for managing internships”. Please note that slight differences are possible between the weekly plan/schedule (the training project) and the final timesheet. However, the total number of hours is mandatory. 
The activity carried out corresponds in terms of objectives and content to the training project, but it obviously requires further planning and implementation steps, to be agreed in principle with the Company Tutor. Both the student and the company could possibly terminate an internship (the withdrawal must be motivated, hearing the Academic Tutor and possibly the supervisor for the internships). Though this is a rather rare event, it is advisable to handle it by avoiding two extreme cases: excessive alarmism, i.e. immediate withdrawal, without checking for any corrective actions, or very late interruption of an internship, after having carried out a significant part of it and being therefore fully aware of the problems. In the event of an interruption/withdrawal, we recommend you start a new internship, or change your study plan in order to remove the internship.  

Conclusion and evaluation of the internship 
The formal closing of the internship takes place according to the procedures described in the next section ("computer procedure for managing internships").
For the ICT area, you expected to draw up an internship report. At the end of the internship you should complete the online procedure, upload the report within one month of the end of the internship (August is not counted). The report will be reviewed by the Academic Tutor who will then proceed with the approval/evaluation of the internship, as a teaching module.       

Computer management procedure for internships
You can find the instructions about the platform that you need to use to upload your internship project and to report the internship progress till its completion at:
https://www.polito.it/en/education/applying-studying-graduating/internships-and-thesis/curricular-internships-in-italy
https://www.polito.it/en/education/applying-studying-graduating/internships-and-thesis/curricular-internship-abroad
Internship Coordinators:
Prof. Claudio PASSERONE (Elettronica)
Prof. Sergio FERRERO (Fisica)
Prof. Gianpiero CABODI - Prof. Carlo NOVARA (Informatica)
Prof. Guido ALBERTENGO (Telecomunicazioni, ECE)
Prof. Tatiana MAZALI (Cinema)

For the POLITONG project : Prof. Fabrizio BONANI
For the ERASMUS+ programme: Prof. Danilo DEMARCHI 
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You are not allowed to obtain the recognition of activities that you have already carried out. The internship is considered as an activity formulated from scratch.

However, you are allowed to request the recognition of professional skills in substitution for your free choice credits. Please follow the procedure explained in the "Student Guide": free choice credits ---> other learning activities ---> other learning activities outside the University.
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