Overview of Graduate Internship Courses

At the end of 6 or 12 week internship, students can expect to:

• Gain a broader perspective and knowledge of the industry, companies and careers that are relevant to the sector of the industry of the internship provider, hence lessen the on-the-job training requirements so that students can become effective and productive to their respective organisations much sooner than is usual for fresh graduates;
• Appreciate the work environment and the importance of work values and culture;
• Develop soft-skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking and;
• Interpret, analyse, evaluate and synthesize information in the work place.

Students may take up an internship role from either:

• Projects pre-sourced from industry or other organisation such as research institute by Science faculty;
• Student self-sourced internship. Such internship project will require the student to submit the details of the position in a form of a proposal to the Academic Advisor, who will do the necessary pre-checks and acquire the department coordinator’s approval prior allowing the student to undertake the internship project.

Before registration for the internship course

• Find a company or Research Institute by Science Faculty that is offering internship opportunities

• Write a proposal detailing the internship position to the predetermined academic advisor for their approval
  • For MQF students reading QF5401, submit your proposal to Prof Ren Weiqing
  • For PhD, MSc by Coursework students except MDSML, submit your proposal to Assoc Prof  Bao Huanchen.

• Submit the endorsed proposal to the department’s coordinator for final endorsement
  • For MQF students, Prof Ren Weiqing will be the coordinator
  • For PhD, MSc by Coursework students except MDSML, Assoc Prof  Bao Huanchen will be the coordinator.

• Proceed to register the course through CourseReg@EduRec during the Course Registration Exercise.

Progress Report

Students reading the course are required to submit:

• A bi-weekly report to your respective course academic advisor;
  • Please check with your academic advisor on the report format.

• Submit a final report within 2 weeks after the end date of the internship.

• At the end of your internship, your company supervisor and academic advisor will be given an assessment form to rate your performance, professionalism displayed etc. They may also provide feedback formally at the end of the internship or informally during the period of the internship. The respective assessment form can be downloaded below:
  • Company Supervisor Assessment Form
  • Academic Advisor Assessment Form

• Students are expected to give an oral presentation to the academic advisor. Your company’s supervisor may be invited to attend the presentation.

• The general format for oral presentation is as follows:
  
  • What is/are the objective(s) / task(s) that you are asked to perform for the internship
  • The equipment/software/tools etc used to help you achieve your tasks
  • What have you achieved at the end of the internship
  • Any other observation(s) made

• The assessment for the course will be done jointly by both the academic advisor, who will determine the student’s final grade and company supervisor.
• There will be no final examination for this course.

Who can enrol into MA5401 and MA5402?

Only Mathematics MSc coursework and PhD students are allowed to take these courses. For MSc by Research students, you are only allowed to enrol for MA5401. For MQF students, please enrol for QF5401.

Can I register for MA5402 if I have taken MA5401 before?

No. Students are only allowed to take either one of these courses. Please consider this before enrolling for the internship course.

What type of internship positions are acceptable for this course?

Internship projects must be in a field related to science student’s major or application area, and must feature complex problem solving and other meaningful experiential learning elements which complements the training in their postgraduate programmes.

Areas such as operation risk, quantitative research, quantitative trading, data science & analytics, machine learning, computational science, finance, business analytics, mathematics education, mathematical research are suitable. If student is uncertain of the suitability of the internship position, please check with the graduate internship coordinator.

If the student is interested in non-math related internships, he/she will be required to seek the approval of the internship coordinator of MA5401 or MA5402.

I would like to ask if remote internships with Chinese companies are allowed.

The primary purpose of MA5401 and MA5402 is to allow graduate students to pursue mainly face-to-face internships locally or overseas. Students interested in remote internships with overseas companies under MA5401 and MA5402 have to seek approval from the internship coordinator.

Department highly encourage students to consider the pros and cons of face-to-face/virtual internships with their long-term career goals.

How do we submit the internship biweekly and final reports?

Please submit your bi-weekly report and the final report online to the internship coordinator. 

Is the internship oral presentation conducted face-to-face or done virtually?

It could either face to face or on Zoom. The details are to be determined by the internship coordinator.

The duration of the internship is not aligned with the academic semester. 

Department is flexible on allowing students to complete internships not aligned with the semester. If the internship commenced for more than 6 /12 weeks, students can still enrol for MA5401/MA5402 respectively.

Students will be awarded “IP” (In progress) grade in the semester of enrolment if the semester has ended but the student is still in the midst of the internship. Credits and CS grades can be awarded in the semester of completion and if the student passes the course requirements.

Ph.D. students taking internship course. Whether the is allowed and whether the credits count for graduation? 

Ph.D. students will require the approval of their Ph.D. advisor prior to registering for MA5401 or MA5402. They are generally encouraged to enrol into MA5401 or MA5402 after the completion of the Graduate Assistantship Programme (GAP) hours to avoid conflicts with their teaching duties commitments. Students enrolled in MA5401 and MA5402 are allowed to receive monthly salary from the company.

Are the internship courses counted towards the graduation requirements for the Masters or PhD Programme?
Please check the graduation requirements the programmes: https://www.math.nus.edu.sg/pg/msc-cwk/msc-cwk-current/

https://www.math.nus.edu.sg/pg/phd/phd-current/

Provide more information on Visa application for overseas internships. 

For overseas internships, students and employers are responsible for checking on the visa and permit requirements for the host country and relevant immigration authorities in compliance with immigration regulations.

If a student is working as a research assistant for Math/other departments in NUS, is there a need to enrol for the internship course?

MSc and PhD students applying for RA roles within NUS on NSWS portal do not need to enrol for MA5401 and MA5402 if they are working within the permissible maximum hours allowed (ie. 16 hours per week during semester and full-time during NUS vacation period)

For PhD students in Year 1-4, they should be focusing on their research and serving their GAP hours during semester period. If they wish to work while conducting their research, they must have the advisor’s approval to do so and adhere to MOM student pass guidelines: maximum (16- x GAP hours) per week. They do not need to enrol for MA5401 and MA5402 for the above scenario. 

For PhD students in Year 5-7, if they have applied for the NUS SRA Scheme, they are allowed to work maximum 44 hours per week, as per agreement with MOE and MOM, with their student pass.

MA5401 and MA5402 are mainly for internships in external organisations. If PhD and MSc students want to embark on internship during NUS vacation period via MA5401/5402, department can allow them to do so, with their advisor’s approval.