Faculty Syllabus

This is an informal internal or external internship experience where the student may apply both soft skills and technical skills in a bioscience workplace.

The internal internship in bioscience lab at ACC is when the student works on independent projects such as assisting in classroom laboratory preparation or protocol development under the supervision of an ACC instructor. Alternatively, the experience can be external to the college at the employer site, where the student is mentored and supervised by a workplace employee. Internship may be paid or unpaid.

During the first week of the class the interns will meet in the classroom to discuss course policies and review the syllabus. There is one additional meeting at the end of the semester for the final presentation and poster session. The remaining meeting times and places will be determined by the student and mentor.

The following steps are required to complete: ACC internship agreement, first week meeting, student evaluation by employer, attendance log with the amount of hours worked, poster presentation or online presentation.

There are no required texts for this internship. However, you may be expected to refer to previous biotech course material and apply it in a workforce setting.

This course is designed to help you to apply the entry-level academic and technical competencies that you have learned in the classroom to real world problems. This may be a research project, or a technical job such as sample testing, or general lab maintenance. You will also develop the employability skills that will assist you in your chosen field such as teamwork, research, dependability, and resourcefulness.

By the end of the course the student should be able to:

Demonstrate employability skills; including safely and competently working in a biosciences lab

Demonstrate the academic and technical competencies of the position

Maintain positive relations with others through teamwork

Maintain a work notebook, and/or prepare a presentation or poster describing the internship

The competency outcomes for this course reflect skills necessary in the biotechnology workforce, which emphasize communication skills, punctuality, and teamwork in addition to biotechnology skills. The State of Texas has adopted the Washington Skill Standards for Biotechnology. The ACC Biotechnology Program has formally adopted these standards and is recognized by the Texas Skill Standards Board. Our TSSB certification is posted here: http://www.tssb.org/ctc/acc.  Each core course in the Biotechnology Program fulfills a specific set of skill standards. BITC 2486 (Internal internship) or BITC 1471 Undergraduate Research are not core courses, however, based on the required activities in those courses, they both help the student master the following skill standards.