The internship constitutes a first professional experience in the student's field of specialization. It gives the student the opportunity to apply and evaluate the knowledge acquired during his or her academic career. The intern must be able to:

• Evaluate their personal computer skills and competencies;
• Compare their knowledge and skills with the requirements of the professional environment;
• Better establish their career plan.

The internship also allows the student to verify their ability to master professional situations, to analyze the functioning of the host organization, to examine the learning that takes place there, and to give an account of it in a report.

The trainee will have to consider a problematic in relation to the host structure and the organization. This problematic can be proposed by the intern, but is usually provided by the company, depending on its areas of interest and the environment in which it is articulated.

The intern will have to establish, on the basis of the existing corpus and the organization's operating procedures, the treatment of this problem, with emphasis on the inherent IT aspects.

The strengths and weaknesses of the approach must be analyzed, implemented and tested against data representative of the organization's activities.

The student will also be expected to produce results using the chosen approach and comment on them. The entire internship should be described in a report. Certain sensitive or confidential details may be concealed, and fictitious data used in order to respect the intellectual property of the host organization. This report, the structure of which is detailed below, will not be made public.

The internship must be supervised by an employee of the host company. It is not required that he/she has a formal university education in computer science. However, he/she must have expertise in the field of computer science through his/her activities.

The internship supervisor is not required to hold a management position but must be present in the organization throughout the internship and provide appropriate professional supervision on a daily basis.

To be eligible for the internship, the student must:

• Have completed the 4 required graduate courses in their program.
• Have maintained a cumulative average of at least B- (2.7/4.3).
• Submit an internship project before the beginning of the term.

IMPORTANT: The project must be accepted by the student's supervisor and the professor in charge of the program.

The process of obtaining an internship must be undertaken by the student. The Department's resources are intended to provide the necessary support, but each step must be completed by the student. They are listed below.

1. Find an internship setting.

• Check the list of internships available next term.
• Talk to a professor who may have contacts in the field.
• Contact a company and offer their services.

2. Find a workplace supervisor

3. Submit the Internship Registration Form signed by the intern and supervisor.

The Internship Registration Form serves as an agreement between the intern, the workplace supervisor, the supervisor, and the Graduate Studies Officer. The company supervisor must indicate agreement in principle by signing the document. This document must then be submitted to the research supervisor and the graduate studies supervisor.

IMPORTANT: The project must be submitted and accepted before the internship begins.

The internship proposal must include the following:

• Student contact information: permanent code and email address.
• Presentation of the organization and the professional context where the internship will take place: profile, type, size and activities.
• Key stakeholders, starting with the internship supervisor: name, contact information (phone, address, email), position in the company, professional experience and training.
• Project description: goals, objectives, problematic and expected challenges.
• An element of research (exploration) and/or development (innovation).
• Timeline for completion of activities.
• Duration of the internship (start and end dates), time spent on the internship (number of weeks and hours per week).

4. For the duration of the internship, you will be enrolled with a Rédaction status, only if all graded courses in your structure are completed and passed. Note that IFT 6916 - Internship is only registered on your record at the time of submission of your internship report and does not contribute to your cumulative GPA.

The following is the typical structure of an internship report (approximately 40 pages):

1. General Information (cover page):
   • Student name, number
   • Title of internship project
   • Name, contact information and definition of the host organization (company, public organization, association, etc.)
   • Name and contact information of the internship supervisor

2. Introduction
3. Context / Issue, information about the organization, field of activity, number of employees, location, years of existence, etc., project within the organization that encompassed the internship (if applicable): objectives, duration, participants, etc.
4. Objectives of the project pursued during the internship and work required
5. Timeline
6. Work environment
7. Presentation of the designed systems and their integration into the work environment
8. Technical problems encountered and their resolution
9. Critical evaluation of the contribution of the internship to the student's training: main outcomes of the internship, intermediate choices that could have been done differently (if applicable).

Some key elements for the report

• It is safe to use self-generated graphics.
• Always acknowledge sources and give credit to others' graphics. Failure to respect copyright will be considered plagiarism.
• Explain the graphics.
• Show what you have done. Don't just restate the description of the models.
• Describe the details of the experiment, following the technical reports (arXiv as is).
• Describe the papers, presentations made, documents produced, etc.
• Demonstrate the theoretical and technical knowledge mastered during the internship, what you applied, and what you learned from the internship (not your own opinion of the internship).
• Detail the analysis of problems and examination of solutions.
• Explain how you adapted to different situations during the internship.
• Explain the decisions you made when faced with several possible solutions.

You can also find more info on the ESP website: https://esp.umontreal.ca/ce-quil-faut-savoir/cheminement-et-encadrement/memoire-et-these/. Here is the Dissertation and thesis guide - ESP and the information on the UdeM Libraries site: Rédiger une thèse ou un mémoire à l'UdeM (Getting started: Presentation guide and document templates).

Note: The report is used for evaluation purposes only and will not be archived at the University Library. The computer aspect will need to be prominently displayed.

*If necessary, a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) may be signed by the various parties involved to protect confidential information.

Upon receipt of the internship report:

• An official receipt for filing the internship report is issued by the Graduate TGDE.
• A panel of judges including the supervisor (chair of the panel) and another professor is formed.
• The TGDE sends the jury the internship report, the evaluation form and the employer's evaluation form.
• The jury then has 4 to 6 weeks to evaluate the report. If it deems necessary, it may require corrections, which the student must make in his or her internship report, before a grade is issued. This grade is non-contributory to the average.
• The awarding of a total grade lower than C for the internship report (or for the directed work) results in failure (F), i.e., the student is excluded from the program (Art.76D).
• The jury gives the TGDE the evaluation form and the associated grade is entered in the student's academic file.

Any plagiarism, copying, or fraud, or any attempt to commit, or other participation in, such acts, in connection with an examination or graded work, thesis, or dissertation is governed by the provisions of the Disciplinary Regulations on Plagiarism and Fraud for Graduate Students.

Regulations explained: https://integrite.umontreal.ca/reglements/les-reglements-expliques/