While we do not give course credit for internships, we officially recognize their importance and educational value via the optional Professional Tracks associated with all of the standard concentrations. The course requirements for the Professional Tracks include all those of the standard concentrations, as well as the following: Students must complete a minimum of two full-time professional experiences totaling 2 to 6 months of full-time effort  (which may involve part-time experiences of equivalent total effort). This internship work must be related to the concentration program, and it is strongly recommended that a proposed internship assignment be pre-approved by the concentration advisor to ensure that it is aligned with the concentration program. Each internship must be at least one month of full-time work in duration. Such work is normally done at a company or a non-academic organization outside of Brown. In some cases, the internship work may be done at a university under the supervision of a faculty member. Internships that take place between the end of the fall and the start of the spring semesters cannot be used to fulfill this requirement because it is impossible to satisfy the duration criteria described above. 

No later than two months after the completion of a professional internship experience (the exception to this deadline is for final-semester seniors who must prepare and upload the reflective essay within a week of completion of the experience, so that it may be properly evaluated in advance of graduation), the student must write and upload to ASK a reflective essay about the experience addressing the following points: 

• Describe the organization you worked in and the nature of your responsibilities.
• Which courses were put to use in your work? 
• Which topics, in particular, were important?
• In retrospect, which courses should you have taken before embarking on your work experience?
• What are the topics from these courses that would have helped you if you had been more familiar with them?
• What topics would have been helpful in preparation for this work experience that you did not learn at Brown?
• What did you learn from the experience that probably could not have been picked up from coursework?
• Is the sort of work you did something you would like to continue doing once you graduate? Explain.
• Would you recommend your work experience to other Brown students? Explain.

Each professional experience must be described in a separately submitted essay. The reflective essays are subject to the approval of the student's Concentration Advisor. Entry into the Professional Track requires approval by the Concentration Advisor at the time of concentration declaration. If the student has not yet declared a concentration, the practical training request may be approved by the Chair of the Concentration Committee. The Concentration Advisor will certify that all Professional Track students have completed the necessary internships and approve the associated reflective essays. All other requirements remain identical to those in the standard concentrations.

If you are an international student with an F-1 visa, you will need to apply for a CPT so that you may do a paid internship with a company in the US. Apply for a CPT by following the instructions for professional-track students.