Registration
Students need to complete and submit a Field Experience Agreement form before they can be registered for a field experience through ConnectCarolina. After you have secured your site, know your site supervisor and have confirmed your faculty supervisor, submit this form to begin the registration process.
Meeting with SILS Career Services Coordinator Lori Haight (lhaight@email.unc.edu) is a good idea as you begin the process of securing a field experience, especially if you need help with finding a faculty supervisor. Students may register for a field experience for the Fall, Spring, or Summer Session II terms. Summer Session II field experiences can begin the week after May graduation and extend until the week before classes begin in August.
REGISTRATION DEADLINES
Students must electronically submit a Field Experience Agreement form at least one week before the first day of classes of the semester in which they intend to enroll OR their first day at their organization, whichever is earliest.
It is acceptable for students to begin work hours on site before the start of the semester, or to finish them after the end of the semester -- not every organization operates on a semester schedule -- but the majority of the 135 hours needs to be in the semester in which the student is enrolled.
Students must be registered for a field experience for the semester in which he or she will do the bulk of the hours on site. See the Graduate School's policy on required registration:
Students are required to be registered whenever University resources (including faculty time) are being consumed to appropriately reflect work being done.
Under no circumstance can a student retroactively register for a field experience to earn credit for an internship completed in a prior semester.
Graduate students are allowed to complete multiple Field Experiences for up to 6 credit hours. There are two possible paths to receive all six hours. Path 1: INLS 795-001 (3 credits) + INLS 795-002 (3 credits) over two semesters. Path 2: INLS 795-001 (3 credits) + INLS 797 (1.5 credits) + INLS 797-002 (1.5 credits) over three semesters. International students who want to maximize their CPT should follow Path 2.
Undergraduate students are allowed to complete two Field Experiences to receive up to 4 credit hours over two terms with INLS 393 (3 credits) + INLS 493 (1 credit).
The 135 hours on site translates to approximately nine hours on site per week during a 15-week semester. The number of hours you work per week does not have to be spread evenly across the semester. The hours may be scheduled at times mutually convenient for both you and the site. You may or may not receive pay for the experience, depending on policies and resources of your host site. If pay is available, you may receive both credit and pay.
