SD3192 Internship: Student Guidelines

**Before starting your internship, make sure that you have done the subject
registration in “SD3192 Internship” so that you will get academic credits for it.
These guidelines are intended to help you gain the maximum possible benefit from your internship experience.
They should help you to set up a framework for reflection and review which will enable you to get the most
out of the learning opportunities in 3 sessions as follows:

1. Preparing for internship

2. Managing your internship
3. Internship report writing

1. Preparing for internship

• You will be expected to identify and approach an appropriate internship company, under the guidance of
the Internship Coordinator from your design discipline.
• You will be expected to develop, in discussion with the Workplace Supervisor,
specific goals for learning on internship.
• There are different ways of learning that take place during an internship. Sometimes the projects assigned
to you will require creative thinking and certain jobs will be daily routine assistance. Try your best to do
the tasks you are assigned and show initiative in asking for additional learning opportunities.

Remember that all internships must fulfil this subject requirement of

an 8-week full time design-related.

2. Managing your internship

• In order to be sure that your internship is working effectively, it is important that you and your
Workplace Supervisor have a procedure of reflection and review.
This would work along the following lines:
a. At the outset of your internship, yourself, your Workplace Supervisor and preferably, your Internship
Coordinator should negotiate what your role will be within the company / organization and the
potential opportunities which the internship has to offer.
b. You and your Workplace Supervisor should meet regularly to review progress and highlight any areas
of difficulty and agree on what could be done to resolve them.
• You are required to keep a log of your work experience. This may include descriptions of skills or
knowledge you are acquiring and accounts of experiences. You should also keep a record of your
meetings with your Workplace Supervisor.
• Sometimes you will need to stand back and reflect on what you have done in order to be aware of what
you have learned.

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 SD3192 Internship: Student Guidelines
3. Internship report writing

• The internship report is an assessable component of your internship experience. You should report
your experience; describe, analyze, and reflect on the important aspects of learning; and appraise your
own performance. Please refer to the guiding questions (Appendix 1) and writing critical reflections
(Appendix 2) for internship report writing.
• The internship report should be accompanied with a work experience log, samples of work undertaken
and an updated resume.
• The report must be completed and submitted on the due date.

Report submission deadline:

26 August 2024 (Monday) 3pm HKT

4. Assessment elements

Assessment is based on the following components:

(1) Workplace Supervisor's Report: 35%

(2) Student's Internship Report: 65%

Includes:
- Report Contents: Detailed description of learning experiences (work experience log, samples of work
undertaken) with critical reflections (min. 1000 words), and an updated resume: 45%
- Report Visual Presentation: layout/formatting, organization/flow, visual aesthetics: 20%

Note: Student must submit and pass both components to pass the subject.

5. Further Readings
Aspelund, K. (2006). The design process. New York: Fairchild.
Best, K. (2006). Design management: managing design strategy, process and implementation. Lausanne: AVA Publishing.
Fanthome, C. (2004). Work placements – A survival guide for students. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kaser, K.; Brooks, J. R. & Brooks, K. (2007). Making the most of your internship. Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-
western.

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 SD3192 Internship: Student Guidelines
Appendix 1: Guiding questions for internship report writing
Student name & student no.:
Dates of internship:
Internship company/organization:
Workplace Supervisor & contact no.:

Learning goals
• What are the learning objectives listed in your internship contract?
• What have you done to prepare for your internship?

The company
• What is the nature of the company?
• What is its size and structure (major departments and their relationship)?
• What is the function of the department in which you worked?
• Who are the members in the department and their job description?
• What type of clients do they serve?
• What changes and developments are happening?

Work processes
• What are the typical procedures in which work is done in the department?
• How is the design process carried out in a professional setting?
• What ideas, attitudes and values influence the manner in which the department/staff goes about the work?
• What are the things that sometimes bring constraints at work?

The internship
• What was your role?
• What was the range of work assigned to you?
• Who were the people you contacted? How good was your interaction with them?
• What tasks did you undertake? (refer to your work experience log)
• How did you tackle the tasks assigned to you?
• How did you apply knowledge and skills learnt at School to the work situation?

Learning
• What learning did you achieve? e.g.
• Skills – what can you do now that you could not do before?
• Knowledge and understanding – what do you know now that you did not know before?
• How was your learning achieved?
• Where and when do problems occur? Is there a pattern? What do you need to do differently?
• What evidence could you supply of learning achieved?

Critical appraisal
• How would you evaluate your own performance?
• Have you achieved the learning objectives listed in your internship contract? If not, what else could you have done to learn
more from the internship?
• What were the good and bad aspects?
• In what ways could the experience be improved by the company, your own initiation, the School’s supervisory support?
• How does the internship help you understand your strengths and weaknesses, career interests and directions?
• What are your next steps to pursue your personal and professional growth?

Note: The internship report should be accompanied with a work experience log, samples of work undertaken and an updated resume.

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 SD3192 Internship: Student Guidelines
Appendix 2: Writing critical reflections

Critical reflection

Critical reflection is an important creative tool.

Becoming reflective critically means continually evaluate the effects of your choices and actions, and actively
seek out opportunities to grow professionally.
Writing critical reflection is worth the time. You will sharpen your observation skills through collecting and
analyzing observations; organize and clarify thoughts; develop a different or deeper understanding of issues in
the work setting; and enhance your skills in writing with clarity and depth. Most importantly, you will recognize
habits of your minds and actions and how they shape your design ideas and practice.
This set of guidelines aims to introduce you to reflective practice through FAQs
What is a reflective internship report?
• How can critical reflection develop my creative thinking?
• What can I do to improve my skills in critical reflection?
• What should I do to reflect on my experience?
and examples of writing critical reflection.

What is a reflective internship report?

• There are two basic elements in the report: evidence of learning and reflection on the learning. It
presents your internship learning journey; records your observations, questions, mistakes, explorations,
analyses as well as achievement; and shows how you develop knowledge and skills reflectively.
• It is an assessment tool that assists teachers to evaluate whether student learning meets the subject
learning outcomes.

Subject learning outcomes

• describe the company structure and work processes
• apply knowledge and skills learnt at school to a real life work situation
• apply design process in a professional setting, including project management, production and business
• reflect critically on learning experience
• demonstrate communication and organization skills

How can critical reflection develop my creative thinking?

• Critical Reflection is closely related to the success of generating ideas.
• It helps to improve your thinking and problem-solving by re-visiting and re-examining the creative / design process.
• Critical reflection gives you another opportunity to assess the importance of each aspect of the design experience.
Reviewing your experience can help you understand why you tend to approach things in certain ways and avoid
others.
• You will discover new priorities and ways of seeing things.
• And the very act of writing down your reflections stimulates the flow of more ideas and possibilities.

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 SD3192 Internship: Student Guidelines
What can I do to improve my skills in critical reflection?
• Simply saying what you think is not a reflection. Show your thinking by describing what happened, saying
what you agree or disagree and why, and discussing your own points of view about controversial issues.
• Keep a daily log to form the basis of the reflective writing – a log with notes on observations, problems
and accomplishments, feelings, thoughts, reasoning, reactions, questions, and areas of growth you are
experiencing. Such document helps you see how you change and develop through time.
• Be a keen observer of your own self, others and the situation. Try to relate your work experience to a
bigger picture of social, cultural, psychological and economic contexts.
• Review the learning of design projects to sharpen your skills in observation and reflection on the design
process in a professional setting.
• Share experience with your friends – Get different perspectives and question your unaware assumptions.
Some techniques of keeping a daily log
• 10-minute free writing at the beginning or end of a day
• Focused free writing on a question or issue e.g. Key elements for design process is …, I was
unaware of…
• Listing e.g. What’s new/important today, Concerns of project X
• Concept / mind mapping
• Dialogue: conversation between people, ideas or things to help look
at an issue from a different perspective

What should I do to reflect on my experience?

Look at an experience which you want to reflect and find relationships among self, knowledge and real-world
experience. For example:
o a time when you were effective on prioritizing tasks and meeting a deadline: How did you do? What
strategies did you use to achieve it?
o an idea that you had to convince a resist colleague to use: How do you go about getting agreement?
What was the result? What did you learn?
o a situation that you keep your knowledge or skills up to date with the ongoing changes in the industry:
What did you do?

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 SD3192 Internship: Student Guidelines
Writing critical reflection

A few examples from design students’ internship reports

Extract 1 Comments
For school project, I need to create designs that are not made before, either in terms Question own assumption of
of function or appearance. However, at the internship, even I need to create an innovative ideas. Reflect on
how things can be done
innovative design, I have to base on practicality. Does it function and with aesthetics
differently to cope with the
and meet market needs? It is not easy to fulfill these three requirements. So many business of design.
times, my designs are with aesthetics but they do not work functionally, and I need to
improve and improve until the managing director is satisfied. I need to think creatively
and rationally.

Extract 2 Comments
By working with different people, I can observe the difference between different levels Analyze what was observed in
of staff. For the senior staff, they are really good at pointing things out and presenting the workplace and develop this
awareness into possible
things clearly. Even the senior account servicing people are creative. They may not be
practice strategies. This shows
able to do layout designs, but they have a certain art sense and are clear about strategy an ability to see relationship
and client needs. As a student, I think I have to make use of the rest of my student between personal learning and
life to organize my ideas and speak as clearly as possible in my presentation. professional practice, and an
When doing assignments, I usually work very fast and focus on my own work unless ability to generate potential
people ask me for help. I guess I have to be more active to look around and solution with an eye toward
give comments so as to train myself in art direction. I also found that it is future application.
annoying if someone stands in front of my computer and gives vague art direction that
doesn’t work. Therefore, in order not to make people feel annoyed and stressed, I
need to learn how to articulate my ideas clearly and politely when I want to help
others for a good reason.

Extract 3
Comments
WEEK 4 Working with computer software is the main focus of this week. … Give background of what
triggers the awareness of the
Nowadays most of our designs cannot be executed without computers as some of
importance of CAD in the field
them are not only for us to see but also other people, such as contractors, suppliers of work.
or even design partners. Even though software becomes one of the important tools
for our design production, they should not limit our design thinking. My colleagues Describe thinking about what's
always draw out their ideas before they start using the CAD or sketch up models. important to oneself that shows
Furthermore, they work even more than my expectation; they build the 3D from an ability to make explicit an
micro to macro. increasing understanding of
I appreciate the thinking behind this action as this needs them to work process and own design
think more before rendering the idea in the computer. The logical thinking skill.
and planning behind are not easy job, because this also includes imagining Evaluate and refine learning
goal.
forms, calculating the dimensions, and planning the sequence of building
the 3D models. I always work wrongly as I miss the steps e.g. wrong calculation and Show active thinking over
sequences, etc. time leading to a personal
Compared to Week 3 exercises, the computer works are really boring to me viewpoint and an urge toward
as I keep on repeating the same action. However, as a design tool, I think this kind of learning.
exercise is really good at training us software, and planning before the action. I
remember I set the learning goal of “asking questions” during my Week 1 internship,
now I need to add more. “Think carefully before and ask the right questions” should
be a goal that I want to achieve.
WEEK 5 CAD is not only a visualization tool but also the communication language of
our industry. Therefore, I tried to read what is on the CAD drawings while I was
working. … Although my colleague explained the symbols to me one by one, I still

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 SD3192 Internship: Student Guidelines
did not understand how to use them. The drawings are like Chinese and English, we
use them to communicate with contractors, suppliers or our clients. I suddenly
wonder why I did not learn the “language” at school. Isn’t it also playing an important
role in design production? …

Extract 4
As a design student, I think that design skills are needed in order to become a Comments
successful designer. However, what is the strength of a student who comes from A critical reflection of a taken-
for-granted assumption and
School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University? That is research skills and
see the relationship of actions
awareness of the society. Design always relates to society, culture and lifestyle. and the context. This new
Successful design should fulfill clients’ needs. Furthermore, it should have social understanding of societal
responsibilities. In New York, most commercial leaflets and flyers were responsibility may translate into
designed with one or two colours to reduce ink. It is because designers future professional practice.
have responsibility of not wasting resources of the earth. In Hong Kong, most
designers only consider effect and appearance to attract the audience. They do not
really care how much they are wasting resources in the design production stage.

Extract 5 Comments
During the whole internship period, I was required to report directly to my boss… Describe a situation which
Most of the time, he came to me with a sketch of what he wanted and asked me to triggers a feeling and a decision.
Suggestions for reflection
work it out. As a designer, I first felt that it was quite an uncomfortable experience as
• Evaluation e.g. What are good
I would like to have more chances to create things in my own way. But soon, I realized
and bad about the boss’s sketch
that I should not expect that much as I was working in a team. Things in a workplace and my sketch?
were different from school. Not only you would not have that many chances to do • Analysis e.g. What do the
things in your own ways, also you may have to change yourself in order to cope with selected sketches have in
the workplace. Soon after, I tried to work according to my boss’s sketch, but at the common? What assumptions
same time I did another design in my own way. Although not every one of my versions and needs do the boss feedback
would be chosen, I think it would still be a good chance for me to practice my creativity. imply?
To me, a designer should not only be an executer but also a creator. • Who is ‘you’? Use ‘I’ because
the reader of the report is often
you and your tutor.

Reference
Carson, L. & Fisher, K. (2006). Raising the bar on criticality: students’ critical reflection in an internship program. Journal
of management education 30(5), 700-723.
Kember, D., Jones, A., Loke, A., Mckay, J., Sinclair, K., Tse, H., Webb, C., Wong, F., Wong, M. & Yeung, E. (1999).
Determining the level of reflective thinking from students’ written journals using a coding scheme based on the
work of Mezirow. International journal of lifelong education 18(1), 18-30.
Jasper, M. (2003). Beginning reflective practice. Nelson Thornes.
Park, C. (2003). Engaging students in the learning process: the learning journal. Journal of geography in higher education
27(20), 183-199.
Thompson, S. & Thompson, N. (2008). The critically reflective practitioner. Palgrave Macmillan.
Thorpe, K. (2004). Reflective learning journals: from concept to practice. Reflective practice 5(3), 327-343.

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