Internship Digital Humanities
Internship
The internship is part of the Master's degree programme in Digital Humanities and is required for the successful completion of the programme. Students receive 5 ECTS credits. The internship is intended to provide a practical insight into institutions and working techniques of digital applications in the humanities and social sciences environment. The students should become familiar with all the important components of computer-supported work and practise them in a typical working environment. They should get to know typical methods in an introductory phase, reflect on them theoretically and then be able to assess and use them independently in their application.
Requirements for the awarding of ECTS and the general conditions can be found down below. In addition, we refer to the internship application, which must be submitted for approval before the internship, and the template for the internship report. The current documents can be found here.
ECTS requirements
- The internship can only be credited if the students are enrolled in the Master's degree program in Digital Humanities during the internship.
- The content of the internship must be in the field of digital humanities. Possible institutions are museums, archives and other memory institutions, but also providers of software in the humanities or social sciences or scientific institutions and projects both in the scientific field and in the private sector.
- The internship must be submitted to the DHLab no later than four weeks before the start of the internship using the "Praktikumsantrag MA-DH" form. Within one week, the DH internship supervisor (Peter Fornaro) will provide feedback as to whether the internship will be approved. After this feedback, a learning contract must be recorded.
- Retrospective recognition of an internship is only possible in exceptional cases.
- The scope of the internship corresponds to four weeks of full-time work. It is possible to complete the internship part-time. In this case, the degree of employment must be at least 30% and the duration of the internship is extended accordingly.
- A longer internship period is possible at any time. No additional ECTS credits are awarded for a longer internship.
- The internship report must be submitted to Peter Fornaro no later than four weeks after the end of the internship. The report must meet the following requirements:
- The internship report comprises 2-3 pages (excl. title page), using the corresponding template (Documents DHLab Praktikum / Vorlage Praktikumsbericht) and is signed by the student and their supervisor at the internship company.
- The report can be written in German or English.
- The report must be submitted in electronic form as a PDF file to the DH internship supervisor.
- If the report does not meet the requirements, it will be rejected for revision. The maximum period for revision is 10 days. If the internship report is still unsatisfactory, the internship is deemed to have been failed.
- In addition, a confirmation of employment from the internship company must be submitted, which provides information on the duration of employment, the degree of employment and the activities carried out independently by the student.
- ECTS credits will only be awarded once the internship report and the internship confirmation have been submitted and approved by those responsible for the internship program at the DHLab.
General conditions
- The DHLab does not arrange internships. However, it advises and supports interns in questions relating to internships. Please arrange a personal appointment by sending an e-mail to sekretariat-dhlab@unibas.ch.
- The students coordinate with the internship company on their own initiative regarding the execution, compensation, etc. of the internship.
How do I find an internship?
Students are responsible for finding an internship themselves. We recommend that you use the Career Service Center of the University of Basel.
It is not possible to complete an internship at the DHLab itself, but this is possible at other locations within the university. However, in the interest of gaining external practical experience, the internship should be completed outside the university if feasible.
Administrative remarks
In the learning contract for the internship, it is important that the type of student work is specified as “Praktikum”, that the module “Creating, Analyzing and Visualizing of Data” is specified and that 5 CP are entered.
There is also an information sheet for filling out the learning contract.
Internships are graded with "pass/fail".
Please note: The internship appears on the transcript as "Internship: Title of internship". The choice of title is up to the student and should be as meaningful as possible.
A common mistake here is that students title their internship as "Internship Digital Humanities", which means that the word "Internship" appears twice in the transcript, and this is not really a meaningful title.
Student testimonials
Name
Anika
Subject combination
Bachelor: Media Studies & Sociology
Master: Media Studies & Digital Humanities
Company
Roche Pharma AG, Human Resources (Employer Branding) & Communications
Job title
Intern Employer Branding & Talent Acquisition
Working Student Digital Communications
Interview
How did you find out about your internship?
Via a job portal on the Internet.
What were your tasks during the internship?
One of my main areas of activity in the communications department is coordinating and supporting the global intranet relaunch project, which lasted several years. I was involved in all communication measures during the migration phase, the launch and the current aftercare phase. For cataloging and search engine optimization, content-related anticipation of the relevant context was and is of great importance. Advising all departments of Roche Pharma AG and regular coordination with the global project team led to a successful launch and acceptance of the new intranet among employees. In order to ensure long-term optimization of the content and corresponding SEO, I set up the majority of the tracking and analytics activities of the new intranet pages in Google Analytics and carry out regular analyses.
I also support Roche social media activities across Germany and last year carried out a comprehensive analysis of all digital Roche Germany channels. To support our employees with social media and external corporate communications, I helped design an ambassador program. Previously, I was responsible for target group-oriented social media content planning as well as monthly social media analysis and evaluation in the Employer Branding & Talent Acquisition department. I helped design the implementation of the LinkedIn Germany page and contributed to optimizing the use of Roche social media channels. I was also involved in the conception and creation of the interactive photo gallery published on a departmental landing page.
What tips do you have for students looking for an internship?
I would recommend starting the search both job/advertisement-driven and employer-driven. It also helps to read through a lot of job advertisements at the beginning to get a feel for the specific job titles - if the subjects you are studying allow for a broader professional orientation.
Name
Ella
Subject combination
Bachelor: History and Sociology (University of Konstanz),
Master: History and Digital Humanities (Master, University of Zurich and University of Basel)
Company
State Archives Thurgau
Job title
Archive intern
Interview
How did you find out about your internship?
I had heard about the State Archives beforehand and sent an unsolicited application because I wanted to do an internship in the summer.
What were your tasks during the internship?
At the beginning of the internship, I worked on the indexing project for government council resolutions. I read through government council resolutions from 1924 and then entered them into the system (Scope Archive) with the correct titles. The aim was to understand the resolution and to record it as briefly but meaningfully as possible so that it could then be found in the corresponding search. I then indexed notarial files, which became a little more complicated because, among other things, decisions had to be made about which files to keep and sometimes documents had to be collected from death files and you had to understand the different ways in which notaries work. Towards the end of my internship, I was increasingly assigned to the user service, which I really enjoyed. I looked after people visiting the archives, retrieved and prepared files that had been ordered, helped with research and answered questions. The job also involved dealing with inquiries from the cantonal administration, answering emails and answering telephone inquiries.
What I liked most about this internship was the variety, after the different stations in the archive I already had a pretty good feeling of how things work. I was also able to help out in different places and, for example, spent a day lugging boxes during a file transfer to the heritage department, which also gave me a new feel for the different aspects of everyday working life. I also found the work in the user service very exciting because you work with a wide variety of people and have many impressive encounters, for example when people who were affected by compulsory welfare measures look at files about themselves or search for their foster families.
What tips do you have for students looking for an internship?
In my experience, it can be worth applying spontaneously and being persistent. After my first application in the archive, I didn't get a reply. It wasn't until I called again and continued to show strong interest in the interview, where I was initially told that no one could be hired because of the Corona pandemic, that I was offered the internship position for the summer despite the circumstances.
Even during the internship, you can keep an open mind, ask questions and show interest, which gives you new insights into areas that you wouldn't otherwise get to know.