What are external internships?

External internships are training activities carried out by university students in a private or public company, entity or body, and are intended to complete their academic training and bring them closer to the reality of the professional field in which they will carry out their activity once they have titled.

External internships can be of two modalities:

• Curricular internships (those that are part of the study plan of the Bachelor's degrees, official Master's degrees and Bachelor's degrees or Diplomas with Practicum). They are mandatory and are therefore evaluable. The first practices carried out by the student will always have a curricular nature.
• Non-curricular internships (those that are not part of the study plan). They are voluntary.

Characteristics common to both:

• They do not generate any employment relationship between the company and the student.
• They are also different from any other form of non-labour provision of services, including scholarships.
• They are formalized in the same way through an educational cooperation agreement with the university and an annex to the student's internship.

What requirements must students meet to do external internships?

Only those students with valid university registration, in official Bachelor's or Master's degrees, can access the internships. In the case of Bachelor's degrees, it is also an essential requirement that the student has passed at least 45% of the credits that make up the training itinerary of their study plan.

Who is responsible for the development of external internships?

The realization of the external internships of the students is supervised by a professional tutor in the entity, and by an academic tutor in the University, who will be, in general:

• In Degree, the academic tutor of practices or in its case, the coordinator of the degree.
• In Master, the Coordinator of the same.

The External Internship Unit is the administrative body in charge of managing the internships of students enrolled in the University's Bachelor's and Master's degrees, with the exception of clinical internships in Medicine, Nursing, Physiotherapy, Dentistry and Occupational Therapy.

In the cases of students with disabilities or special educational needs, does the University provide advice?

Yes. The Unit for Attention to Persons with Disabilities and Special Educational Needs offers its support to entities and students for the satisfactory development of internships, under the prism of equal opportunities. More information in this link.

What is the duration of the external practices?

Curricular external internships must have the duration established by the corresponding study plan.

In order to ensure the correct development of the student's academic activities, the duration of the internship may not exceed, in addition, 50% of the duration of the academic year, so that the students may carry out a total (including curricular internships and extracurricular internships), a maximum of 900 hours of internships per academic year. This number of hours is also the maximum allowed to be carried out in the same entity.

What types of shifts are allowed?

Students will carry out their internships in the morning and/or afternoon at the entity. The schedules for carrying out the internships will be established according to their characteristics, as well as the availability of the student and the collaborating entity.

In any case, they must be compatible with the academic, training and representation and participation activity carried out by the student at the University. In general, and in order to promote time compatibility with class attendance, a maximum of five hours of internships per day is recommended during teaching periods, and can reach up to seven hours in non-teaching periods (maximum of 35 hours per week).

There may be specific provisions in this regard, by the regulatory bodies of certain professional sectors.

Are internships paid?

In accordance with current regulations, since no employment or service provision relationship is established with the entity, internships cannot be remunerated, although the entity may provide the student with a study grant to cover the minimum expenses in those that the student may incur, such as travel or maintenance. In the latter case, the company must register the student with Social Security, according to current provisions.

Under what conditions is the student insured during the internship?

Students under the age of 28 enrolled at the URJC have the necessary coverage to carry out external internships in national territory, since they have the School Insurance that they pay when they enroll (it can be verified on the course enrollment receipt).

If the student is over 28 years of age, he or she must take out individual accident insurance on a personal basis, and must provide proof to the External Internship Unit so that their incorporation into the entity is authorized. 

In the case of carrying out internships abroad, the student must always take out accident insurance that covers their stay in the country of destination.

What is the educational cooperation agreement?

It is the document that regulates the collaboration between the University and the collaborating entity for the practical training of students, and whose formalization constitutes an essential prerequisite for the incorporation of any student to said entity. It does not concern students who carry out internships in the entity; their practices are formalized through Annexes to the corresponding Agreement.

The subscription and maintenance of the agreement does not imply economic consideration for any of the interested parties.

What is the annex to the educational cooperation agreement?

For each student who carries out internships in an entity with which an Agreement has been established, an Annex to the Agreement will be signed, according to the standardized model of the University. The Annex will collect the particular conditions of the offer (period in which it will be carried out, type of day, activities to be carried out, company tutor, etc.) and must be signed by the student, the entity and the University, before the start of the classes. practices.

What is the company or entity committed to with the university and with the student?

Once the Cooperation Agreement has been signed, the Company or Entity undertakes, in general, to have a profile on the virtual platform of the URJC External Internship Unit and to provide the necessary data to identify the offers to students. In particular and with respect to the University, the Company or Entity undertakes to:

• Comply with the conditions contained in the offer of external internships, as well as the Cooperation Agreement that regulates them.
• Appoint a tutor within the company's staff who will be in charge of guaranteeing the student's training process in the entity, as well as communicating any incident on the internship to the academic tutor.
• Guarantee the complementary training that the student needs to carry out the internship.
• Facilitate the student's attendance at exams, evaluation tests and other compulsory activities of the subjects in which he is enrolled, as well as, where appropriate, at the meetings of the collegiate governing bodies of the University.

What advantages does a company obtain by incorporating a student as an external internship?

Collaborating entities obtain several advantages:

• On the one hand, they exercise social responsibility, improving and facilitating the insertion of students in the labor market by providing them with professional experience, which completes their academic training.
• On the other hand, they have the possibility of having for a period of time the training, skills and aptitudes of a university student about to graduate.
• Additionally, the internships can be used for a prior personnel selection process for a future employment contract, not based on intuition, nor on specific tests or interviews, but on a real experience that allows verifying the training and qualities of the possible candidate.

Annually, at the end of the academic year, the Rey Juan Carlos University will deliver the supporting certificates to the professional tutors of the collaborating entities that request it.

What is the procedure for a collaborating entity to offer internship places?

Once the Agreement is signed, the entity will obtain an access key to the virtual platform established for this purpose. The entity may offer, according to its possibilities, the internship places that will be published on the platform, after review by the External Internship Unit. Students who meet the desired profile will be able to consult the offer through the aforementioned application.

For more information, visit our Platform user guide.

What is the procedure for a student to request an offer from the platform?

Students who meet the academic requirements to access internships may apply through the Rey Juan Carlos University internship platform for any of the published offers that are appropriate to their profile.

It will be each entity that will select the candidates, according to its own requirements and demands, which can be established through an interview.

Students can request as many offers as they wish. If they are accepted in any of them, the External Internship Unit will process their incorporation to the corresponding entity and their profile will be blocked in the rest of the offers in which they have registered.

For more information, visit our Platform user guide.

Can a student propose an entity where the external internship can be carried out?

Yes, provided that said entity carries out an activity related to the student's degree. It can be a company, institution or public or private body, national or foreign.

The interested entity must register on the University's External Practices platform and indicate the data of the selected student.

The External Internship Unit will carry out the necessary procedures to establish an Educational Collaboration Agreement with the entity and formalize the internship of the interested student. It will be essential that the entity agrees to sign the Agreement so that the student's proposal can become effective.

Can internships be interrupted or abandoned early?

No. As a general rule, practices must be carried out without interruption. The student may only request their interruption or abandonment, presenting to the External Internship Unit a reasoned report of the reasons that he alleges for said early termination of the internship, and may only carry it out if the External Internship Unit expressly authorizes it. .

The unjustified abandonment of an internship by the student, even with the consent of the affected entity, may entail a penalty, consisting of not allowing the student to join other internships for a period of time to be determined (never less than the internship period). that would have been processed in the entity in which it has been withdrawn).

If it is about the student's curricular internships, an unfavorable report of their internships may also be issued and their External Internships subject may be graded as failing.

An entity, for its part, may terminate a student's internship in advance if it finds justified reasons. Similarly, the student's professional tutor must submit a reasoned report to the External Internship Unit with the reasons that justify said decision.

What deadlines must be taken into account for the correct processing and completion of the internship?

It is very important that the student bears in mind the dates and deadlines indicated for carrying out the practices and processing them.

Internships can be done during any period within the academic year (between September 1 and August 31). The student must calculate the date of joining an entity in order to complete the minimum number of hours required.

As soon as the company has accepted the application of a student and this appears as accepted in the corresponding offer on the internship platform, the External Internship Unit will process their incorporation within a maximum period of five working days. The student will not be able to start their internships until the corresponding annex has been issued and sent to the entity.

The last day for the processing of the incorporation to an internship, or its renewal, in the External Internship Unit is July 15. Applications submitted after that date will be processed from September 1.

The hours carried out by a student in an entity will never be counted, prior to having received the relevant authorization from the University.