Summer Practice

Summer Practice

SUMMER PRACTICE RULES

EEE 300-400 courses are required to be completed for an engineering degree in order to help students observe the application of their theoretical knowledge, enhance their occupational experience, do engineering practice, get familiar with the industry and work conditions, and do a conscious career decision after graduation. The goals, regulations, and guidelines are provided below for the summer practice courses. It is important to follow these in company selection, and during the internship.

• EEE 300 summer practice goals and expectations
• EEE 400 summer practice goals and expectations
• Summer practice periods
• Eligible institutions for summer practice
• Summer practice report format
• A sample summer practice report
• Summer Internship Evaluation Procedure
• Summer practice report cover page
• Summer practice performance report 1^st copy
• Summer practice performance report 2^nd copy
• Other guidelines on summer practice

EEE 300 summer practice goals and expectations

This summer practice is applicable to students who have successfully completed 4 semesters. Even though the summer practice heavily involves observing electrical-electronics engineering in practice, the student is expected to get hands-on with workshop activities (soldering, wiring, layout, data collection using basic measurement equipment, operating electrical engineering equipment, etc.), and exercise technical writing skills in reporting these activities clearly. Any active work involving design and test should also be explained in the report. The expected outcome of this internship consists of the skills and observations gained by the student during the summer practice period.

The observation should be active, not passive, during the summer practice. It is therefore critical for the intern to work one-on-one with an electrical-electronics engineer (mentor), who can answer the technical questions. While performing workshop type tasks, the context of how these contribute to the engineering project, and the goals of this engineering project should be understood. The importance of technical detail orientation in engineering application should start to be clear in EEE 300. The appreciation of details should be reflected to the summer practice report.

EEE 400 summer practice goals and expectations

This summer practice is for students who have successfully completed 6 semesters. Even though this internship also primarily involves observing electrical-electronics engineering in practice, the student is expected to get hands-on with tasks involving active participation such as hardware, electronics card design, manufacturing line work, calibration and quality testing, understand how these tasks fit in with the overall goals of the project, and exercise technical writing skills in reporting these activities clearly. The expected output consists of work carrying engineering attributes such as card design, circuit design, software, efficiency analysis, etc., in addition to practical learning acquired through observations.

As in EEE 300, it is critical for the intern to practice active observation and active listening by asking questions to the mentoring engineer and doing additional research. At this stage, the student should also be able to relate the engineering project he/she has contributed to the theory learnt in school as well as one or more of the subfields of electrical-electronics engineering profession. The importance of detail oriented approach in electrical-electronics engineering should be well internalized by the student during EEE 400, and the summer practice report should be supported with technical details.

Summer practice periods

The minimum period for summer practice is 40 work days. This normally corresponds to a minimum of 20 summer days following the 2nd year (EEE 300), and a minimum of 20 summer days following the 3rd year (EEE 400). When necessary, both stages of the summer practice can be completed during the same summer period. EEE 300 is a prerequisite of EEE 400, and should always be completed first.

Summer practice cannot be done during the school term (any period for which the student is enrolled to a course, including the final exam period.) The students taking summer courses should therefore plan their summer practice outside the summer school periods.

Students should timely notify the school about their summer practice, and should register for the EEE300/400 courses: A student, who has completed his/her internship during the summer, and who has not registered for the corresponding course code in the following Fall registration period, cannot claim completion of summer practice in the following semesters. Thus, it is mandatory to register a summer practice course in the term following the completed internship.

Eligible institutions for summer practice

It is necessary for the activities in the institution to be related to Electrical and/or Electronics engineering. There needs to be at least two electrical and/or electronics engineers in the interned institution (or in the interned subgroup if it is a big institution.

Summer practice cannot be done at universities (laboratories, administration offcies etc.) in Turkey or Cyprus. Summer practices completed at universities abroad are accepted. Independent institutions within university land (Teknokent, TÜBİTAK Institutes, KOSGEB etc.) are suitable for summer internship.

It is desirable for the interned business activities to be related to courses previously taken or courses to be taken within the next year at school. As such, the activities that qualify for summer internship are summarized below.

2nd Year Summer Practice (EEE 300)

It is desired that 2nd year summer practice involves activities which can be followed by students who have acquired the basic electrical, electronics, and electromagnetic knowledge. It is expected that few of the following subjects will be observed during the internship:
• Electrical repair work
• Electrical machines: Facilities which perform the production or maintenance of generators, actuators, transformers, accumulators, breakers, and relays
• Electrical systems: Lighting, LV energy distribution and connectivity, electrical machines layout, command and control projects
• Heating and air conditioning
• Electrical measurement equipment, and data collection
• Electronic circuit fabrication

3rd Year Summer Practice (EEE 400)

It is desired that 3rd year summer practice activities take place in an institution that has engineering expert knowledge and experience:
• Safety in electrical facilities
• Electrical plants, main transformer (step-down) centers
• MV, HV energy transmission, load planning
• MV, HV Power systems protection
• Computer hardware engineering and computer network systems
• Measurement systems and telemetry
• Communication systems or other advanced electronic system design, operation, or production
• Control engineering
The list of organizations which have requested summer practice students from METU can be reached at the corresponding

METU EEE web page. 

Even if you might be interested in doing your summer practice in one of these organizations, check to make sure the institution satisfies the above requirements before you finalize your decision.

Summer practice report format

• The report should be in compliance with the summer practice goals, regulations, and guidelines.
• The report should be edited in English using a word processor, spelling and grammar checked. A report which has many English language mistakes will be returned to the student for revision before it can be evaluated.
• Soft binding of the reports should be done before submission. Reports submitted in envelopes and plastic pockets will not be evaluated.
• The headings should be numbered (1., 2., 3., ..) centered, capitalized, and bolded. Subheadings should also be numbered (1.1, 1.2, 1.3,…) bolded, but not capitalized. The drawing of the figures should be according to engineering standards.
• Every report should contain the following sections
  • (a)CONTENTS:Topics and their page numbers should be listed.
  • (b)COMPANY INFORMATION:
    The following information should be covered:
    • Company name
    • Company location
    • Company organization chart and the place of the interned group in this organization
    • The number of engineers in the company, and especially in the interned project group as well as the duties of these engineers within the organization
    • The company mission and the role of the interned group in this mission
    • A short history of the company
  • (c)INTRODUCTION:
    The scope and goals of the summer practice should be summarized in this section.
  • (d)REPORT:
    All observations and tasks performed in the company need to be explained with attention to engineering detail, keeping in mind the expectations outlined in the above sections from the 2nd and 3rd year students. The completed workshop/design tasks and other technical contributions should be described in chronological order, using a weekly work program resolution when possible. Detailed and technical writing language should be used in communicating the contributed engineering work and analysis. Charts, tables, and figures should be appended and explained, when applicable. Theoretical electrical and electronics textbook information should not be simply reiterated in the report. However, it is highly encouraged to briefly relate theory to the contributed engineering activities for clarification, in the context of the internship experience. All technical resources used should be referenced (keeping in mind wikipedia is not a valid technical reference). It is advisable to first share the reported details, pictures, charts, and figures with the engineering mentor in the interned company to avoid revealing information that the company considers confidential.
  • (e) Tables, figures, and pictures should be inserted on the relevant pages in the report. Pictures and other material taken from other sources should be properly referenced ([1], [2], [3],…)
  • (f)CONCLUSION:
    Data and skills obtained during the summer practice should be analyzed, the company should be assessed in terms of technical work, and appropriate recommendations should be provided. Lastly, engineering learning from the summer practice should be detailed. General statements that do not represent any personal technical gain (e.g. "I understood the difference between real life and school") should be avoided.
  • (g)References:
    In this section the sources of information used during preparation of the report should be listed in numbered order ([1], [2], [3],…).
  • (h) <b<appendix:< b="">Other supportive data, pictures and tables can be attached to the APPENDIX section with proper reference and explanation in the body of the report. If something is not clearly related to the submitted report content or personal experience of the intern, it should not be included.

  Summer Internship Evaluation Procedure

  • Every year the deadline for summer practice reports is announced by the Dean's office.
  • The evaluation process of summer internship reports will take place in two stages. In the first stage, reports will be evaluated first by the EEE Department Faculty. Upon the examination of the reports, the students whose internships meet the requirements will be assigned a "passing" grade.
  • Reports that fail to meet the passing criteria during the first stage will be returned to the students until the last work day of the first week of December. Students will be asked to make necessary changes during the following month. The extended deadline for the final reports with revisions is the last work day of the first week of January. After submitting their final reports to a board of EEE Department Faculty, the students will formally present their internship studies to the board members. If the final report and the formal presentation meet the required criteria, the student will receive a passing grade. Otherwise, the student will have to repeat the summer internship at the same or at a different location.

  Other guidelines on summer practice

  • Summer practice is not a place to acquire theoretical education. The internship period should not be spent on activities like training, coursework, studying for classes, etc. It is expected that the student will participate in technical activities and actively observe. Similarly, examining manuals and catalogs cannot be considered summer practice. Manual, catalog, or datasheet inspection should only be done in support of the main engineering activities.
  • Learning a new programming language, or programming in this language cannot be considered a good summer practice project either. This type of work can only be done in support of a broader engineering project participated by the student.
  • Every intern needs to have a Summer Practice Notebook. The student should have a work plan for the internship, and should regularly note down the work performed according to this plan. These notes can be taken advantage of when writing the final summer practice report. The summer practice report needs to be submitted at the beginning of the semester following the internship based on the rules and schedules determined by the program summer practice committee. Students, who do not follow the rules, guidelines, and schedules in submitting their report, are not credited for that summer practice. The summer practice reports of the successful students may or may not be returned back based on the program committee decision.
  • If you find the engineering content at the company you picked for the summer practice is "weak", or you are not assigned any projects to work on, it is your responsibility to communicate this to the group manager and push for a solution. If the problems are not resolved, it is your responsibility to identify and transfer to another company for summer practice. Not having enough work to do at the interned company does not count for a good excuse to submit a poor summer practice report. The full responsibility of finding a good place to intern, and to execute a successful summer practice belongs to the student.
  • The summer practice report is evaluated by a faculty member based on the subject when it is possible to do so. The student is briefed on which faculty member will evaluate his/her summer practice report. If the faculty member evaluating the summer practice finds it necessary to do so, he/she may ask to see the student's Summer Practice Notebook or other resources used to support the report.
  • If the faculty member evaluating the summer practice finds it necessary to do so, he/she may ask to see the student's Summer Practice Notebook or other resources used to support the report.
  • It is very important for an engineer to prepare a comprehensive and comprehensible Technical Report with an orderly format. The summer practice report is the first such experience for the engineering student. Therefore, summer practice reports are evaluated for content, technical language, presentation, and meticulousness.
  • Summer practice for students participating in international student exchange (Erasmus, etc.) programs: The student can complete the summer practice in Turkey before taking off for the exchange program abroad, in which case he/she would turn in the summer practice report to the exchange program coordinator at the end of the summer. He/she also coordinates with the interned company to have a letter submitted to the Registrar's Office, confirming the summer internship and a passing grade. Exchange program coordinator submits the summer practice report and related forms to the Registrar's Office by the end of the interned summer. The summer practice report of the exchange student is evaluated with other reports, and is either awarded a passing grade, failed, or is returned back to the exchange program coordinator for a revision. The coordinator forwards the information to the student, who submits a revision to the coordinator, if applicable. The student does not register for the EEE 300/400 course in the following Fall semester (since he/she is out on the exchange program), but is enrolled to the related course during the first semester he/she returns back to METU NCC. At this time, previously assigned S or U grade is entered to the Student Affairs Information System, and is thus officially recorded.
  • It is possible to do the Summer Practice in the Erasmus program. Detailed information can be found at Erasmus office web page. Summer practice completed with this program will either count toward EEE 300 or EEE 400 if it is shorttermed (3 months). If it is completed as longtermed, it could count toward both EEE 300 and EEE 400.
  • Report your summer practice without exaggerations. Do not forget to recognize everybody who contributed to the project you worked on. Exaggerated or misleading reports that include work which was not your personal accomplishment will be returned. They may also be in violation with academic rules of honesty and engineering ethics. Do not worry if the work you accomplished during the summer practice seems simple. Seemingly complex engineering designs consist of many smaller tasks that are simple when considered individually. It is important you understand how your contribution fits into the more complex project, and report it with your conclusions and without any exaggerations.