Internship and career development

The Internship and Career Development course highlights the professional dimension of the MA in EU Interdisciplinary Studies. It prepares students’ transition to the job market, especially that related to the EU institutions.

The course develops around the following pillars:

1. Seminars on the necessary skills for finding (and keeping) a job.
2. Seminars on the specific characteristics of the EU institutions’ job market, the recruitment process and the challenges related to working for the EU institutions, especially the European Commission.
3. Guest lectures from professionals sharing their insights on their professional world and their job tasks, the challenges they face, but also how they obtained their position in the first place
4. The development and presentation of a job strategy portfolio, including the drafting of a sound CV and cover letter.
5. Doing an internship of at least 192 hours (ca. 5 weeks).

The main objective of the course is to help students prepare for finding a job upon graduation or soon thereafter. While the acquired skills are transferable to all kinds of jobs, the course’s focus will be on the EU institutions' job market.

The course aims to meet the following objectives:

• Prompting students to reflect on what they want to do after they graduate and what kind of professional career they wish to pursue (and where)
• Help students prepare a good CV and cover letter
• Provide insights on what it means to work for the EU institutions and on the different strategies for achieving this goal
• Getting first-hand experience of working life as a young professional by means of an internship.

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

None

The course draws on a combination of seminars, guest lectures and student work. A small number of in-class meetings is necessary, to introduce students to the technical yet essential details of the EU institutions' job market. Following that, the seminars will give students the opportunity to present their job strategy to their peers and to practice a few European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) mock exams.

Please note that attending and participating in the seminars and guest lectures is mandatory. Unjustified absences will have an impact on the course grading (see below).

Formal requirements relating to the Internship report (length, formatting, dates of submission, etc.) will be provided to the students, together with instructions for preparing the different oral and written assignments.

Course notes

• Université virtuelle

Contacts

emmanuel.sigalas@ulb.be

Campus

Solbosch

Method(s) of evaluation

• Personal work
• Project
• Group work
• Written report

Personal work

Project

Group work

Written report

Students will be assessed on the basis of:

1. attending the course and actively participating in it;
2. their job-seeking strategy report (including a CV, a cover letter and a mock job application);
3. their internship report.

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

Course attendance and participation 25%

Final dissertation (job strategy and internship report) 75%

Language(s) of evaluation

• english