Syllabus v.1.0 – 1/22/07 – Will be Revised
Course: MGT 498C - Management Internship Semester: Spring 2007
Tickets: #15530 (3 PM) and #15531 (6.30PM)
Prerequisites (no exceptions): Mgt. 302 & 302L, Mgt. 360 and Upper Division Writing Examination
Class meetings: Wednesdays, 3.00-5.45PM in JH 1208 & 6.30-9.15PM in JH 1103
Course website: Course WebCT site:
Instructor: R.A. (Denny) Kernochan, Ph.D.
E-mail: (Put “Mgt.498” in subject line if you wish to be sure I receive it promptly)
Website: www: ; Office: BB 4208
Telephone: CSUN Office: (818) 677-2422; Home office: 310-452-5863 (9AM – 5PM weekdays only, please)
Office hours: Tuesdays in the Advisement office JH2113, 9AM-noon; Wednesdays in my office, 1-2.30PM and
9.15-9.45PM; and by appointment.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The internship experience is designed to help students learn skills and knowledge that will have positive impact on their professional careers. It provides students with valuable opportunities, including the opportunity to observe and/or apply organizational management concepts learned in the classroom as well as the chance to “test drive” companies or careers that interest them. The internship experience usually involves one or more special, on-site projects in a sponsor organization.The special project must relate to issues found in Management or Human Resources and take at least 150 hours to complete. Completing the project(s) is an important requirement for successful completion of Mgt. 498C.
Students are responsible for finding their own internships. In some cases, the teacher may have referrals depending on the student’s particular interests. A "regular job" does not qualify for MGT 498C credit. However, it is quite acceptable to design a special internship project with your current employer if it is entirely above and beyond your normal work duties.
Students are admitted to the internship course after the teacher has approved their internship and signed their completed application form. The approval process involves a brief personal interview in person or by telephone. Internships involving very small organizations or family members are usually more difficult to approve. Permission numbers are issued only after the instructor has received and approved a completed original application form.
Acceptable internship projects involve learning about important issues of organizational management such personnel policies and procedures, employee recruitment & selection, leadership, motivation, employee satisfaction, strategic planning, business planning, reorganization, turnover, training needs assessments, training program design, project management and compensation surveys. For other ideas, review a Management 360 textbook. As noted above, the purpose of the project is to expose you to the practice of management concepts and principles that involve the principal functions of organizational management: planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Thus, your project should involve work with or exposure to one or more aspect(s) of these functions.Put differently, organizational management is about organizing the work of others and how that work is done. A good internship project exposes you to the organizational structures and processes that manage the work of others. Generally speaking, if your special project involves how things are organized (or planned, controlled or led), that’s management. If the proposed project concerns the actual doing or organizing of your own tasks or work, it’s not management.
Projects that involve accounting procedures, financial arrangements, sales or marketing proposals are not suitable for Management Department Internship. Also, internships in very small organizations (fewer than 10 employees) are usually less valuable for the purpose of management internships.
TEXTBOOK(S)
1. Required of all students: any Management 360 textbook published in the last 5 years.
2. Required for students with fewer than 3 years work experience:
Green, M.E. 1997. Internship Success. Chicago, IL: VGM Career Horizons.
The Green textbook is optional for other students. If you want ideas about finding an internship, it is recommended that you pick up this book before you start looking. Pages 1-68 have potentially valuable information on how to find the best internship for you. Purchase the paperbook edition on-line.
COMMUNICATION - IMPORTANT
Because there are few meetings during the semester, the primary means of course communicationare the course WebCT site and CSUN email. Therefore, students are responsible for all requirements and assignments sent by email to their CSUN email account, and they must monitor their CSUN email frequently. Students will fail the course if they do not. All communications will be considered delivered after 24 hours from the time of sending. Test your email arrangements now by sending yourself an email to your CSUN email address. If there are any problems, call the University Helpdesk at 818-677-1400.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING
Grading for this course is credit/no credit.Students are responsible for reading this entire document, understanding the requirements of the course, following the stated rules and policies, submitting assignments before the deadline and asking questions in advance if any clarification is needed.To earn “credit” for this course, a student must complete all of the following items on time and to course standards.
  1. Internship: Perform a minimum of 150 hours of work on a job or special project sponsored by an employer during the semester. The internship/project must meet the requirements of a management internship as noted above in course description, and take place during the semester. (If you are not certain if your internship project will qualify, be sure to consult with the teacher before accepting it.)
  2. Profile: Fill out a profile form and give it to the instructor at the first class.
  3. Internship Journal: Submit internship journal entries, Evaluation & Feedback surveys as per the instructions, including formatting requirements, and the course schedule below. See the Internship Journal section below and the Journal Sample for further details.
  4. Diagnostic Worksheets: Fill out and submit the diagnostic worksheets, Evaluation & Feedback surveys as per the information and schedule below.
  5. Evaluation surveys: evaluation and feedback surveys are considered part of all assignments. They must be filled out and submitted at the same time as the original assignment.
  6. Student Case: Submit one short case for class discussion as per the guidelines given below.
  7. Class Meetings: Attend class meetings fully prepared and on time, as required in the “Class Schedule” section of this syllabus. See Class Meeting section below for further information.
  8. Supervisor Survey: Supervisors will besent a survey three weeks before the end of the course. They must fill out and return this survey directly to the teacher. Their responses must indicate that the student has successfully fulfilled their internship obligations.
  9. Course Survey & Evaluation: complete course survey on WebCT before the deadline.
  10. Deadlines: all assignments must conform to specifications and be submitted on time. All assignments are due before 9.05PM onThursday. It is recommended that you consider the deadline to be Wednesday at 9 PM. Students will automatically fail to earn credit for the course if (1) more than 2 assignments are submitted late OR (2) an assignment is not turned in or is turned in more than one week late, OR (3) the final journal is late. There are no acceptable excuses for late work, including computer problems. Assignments are considered late if they fail to meet specifications for the assignment and must be resubmitted after the deadline. Email submissions are never acceptable and merely indicate that the sender has not read or understood these instructions. The final journal entry may not be submitted late.
  11. Acceptable Excuses for failing to meet written course standards or deadlines: none. Part of the learning in this course involves submitting work products to specification before a deadline.
Internship Journal (JE)
  1. The Internship Journal is your reflective thoughts and personal insights on your management internship experience. The purpose of the journal is to create connections between events in your workplace and the management concepts you have studied at CSUN.
  2. Submit your journal on WebCT at intervals indicated in the “class schedule” that appears in this syllabus. Your journal submission must precisely follow the specifications described here.
  3. Journal entry topics:
  4. Journal Entry #1 (minimum 500 words): The following items must be addressed in your first journal entry ("journal entry #1" in the "class schedule" portion of this syllabus), and must be the only item addressed in your first journal entry:
  5. Describe your goal(s) for your internship as well as the main benefits you expect to achieve from it. What would you like use your internship to achieve or accomplish?
  6. Name the management skill you would most like to work on, and present a detailed 4 week plan as to how you will work on it and how you will evaluate both your progress and your system for working on it.
  7. Journal Entry #2: Choose a recent event during your internship that has managerial implications you’d like to reflect on and. You should have participated in or personally observed this event. ------Please answer the following questions about this event. Answer them in order, putting your responses into separate numbered paragraphs or sections. (Please help me read your responses by following this format exactly.) All other formatting instructions are the same as your usual journal entries, including reverse-order of journal entries (put JE2 first, followed by JE1) and HTML formatting of the document you submit on WebCT. ------The questions are general ones. Since I cannot know what event or situation you will choose to describe, I cannot know precisely what question to ask. You will therefore need to interpret and adapt the questions to your particular event. Do your best. If you’re uncertain, do your best and tell me your assumptions. If you read over all the questions in a section carefully, you should be able to understand what kinds of responses I am asking for.
  8. First paragraph. Describe the event carefully and objectively, as if you were a video camera on the wall. What happened, when did it happen, who were the key players, etc. Tell me only what happened, not what you think happened. These instructions are harder than you think.
  9. Second paragraph. How do you feel about this event? What was your first reaction to it? What do you think were the best and/or worst parts of it? Which parts are pleasing or worry you the most and/or least? Did the event remind you of anything that had happened (to you) before?
  10. Third paragraph. What does an outsider observer need to know to understand this event properly? What is the importance of this event? Why did it happen? Does the event or parts of it suggest any patterns? What lessons should we learn from this event? Are there any management models, concepts or principles that can help us understand this event (better?) (If so, be sure to specify which ones, how they apply and the page numbers where they can be found in your management text.)
  11. Fourth paragraph. What has this event taught you? If you were the manager, what would you do the same? Do differently? What would you recommend to a new manager facing this situation?
  12. Journal Entry #3 (minimum 1,000 words): The following questions must be addressed in your final journal entry ("journal entry #3" in the "class schedule" portion of this syllabus), and must be the only questions addressed in your final journal entry. Write the entry in standard English, use paragraphs and use spell check. Don’t forget to check the formatting and specifications for journal entries below before you submit. This journal may not be submitted late.
As preparation for answering these questions, read through your goal sheets and previous journal entries.
  1. What were your original and, if any, revised goals and plans for this internship?
  2. What was your personal system for ensuring that you accomplished your goals? Describe it. Did it work?
  3. How do you feel about the results you achieved?
  4. What do you believe explains (are the reasons for) the results you achieved?
  5. What if anything would you do differently?
  6. What are the most important skills and knowledge you have gained during your internship, and how will these help you advance in your professional life?
  7. How have your actions changed, if at all, as a result of the learning you got from your internship experience?
  8. What about your internship has been different than you expected?
  1. Journal Entry Format: specifications for all journal submissions.
  2. Submit an “htm” document in WebCT: Submitted journals must be an HTML document. Do this by writing the journal as a Microsoft Word document, then save it as a Microsoft Word htm document:
  3. Instructions for a PC computer: In Word, go to the “File” menu, choose “Save as” and then pick the Webpage “ *.htm ” (not Filtered) document type. DO NOT send any other type of document file. Do not send “.doc” files. Save a copy of the “*.doc” file as a backup for your next entry.
  4. The format of the journal Web document must be professional and precisely follow the format (not the content) displayed in the sample journal. Download the sample journal document from WebCT. Format instructions include:
  5. Name, student ID number, Journal Entry # __ and textbook reference at the top of the first page (see sample journal).
  6. Your response should use 12-point font, Times New Roman only.
  7. Single space.
  8. 1-inch margins on all sides.
  9. Use multiple paragraphs; indent first line of each paragraph.
  10. Put the most recent journal entry first.
  11. Submit all previous journal entries each time.
  12. Edit for proper English; use spell-check (zero tolerance for spelling errors).
  13. Put word count at the end of the entry. (See sample journal for example).
  14. Prior to uploading your journal to WebCT, use the "word count" feature in the "Tools" menu in Microsoft Word to ensure that each of your journal entries contains the required minimum number of words.
  15. Journal entries will not receive credit if they fail to conform to these specifications. Students will be required to resubmit their journal entries until the formatting is correct. When journal entries receive a “0” grade, questions about the grade are answered in the comment section in WebCT. After two consecutive failures to submit an assignment that meets technical specifications, students are no longer eligible to earn credit for the course.
Work products submitted by students for this course are private and will not be shown to any individuals working at the sponsoring company.
SECTION MEETINGS
  1. Students will be randomly assigned to a Roundtable section of approximately 10-12 students each. The roundtable sections will be designated A, B or C, and each student will belong to one.
  2. Each section will meet up to 4 times during the course during the regularly scheduled class time and in the designated classroom. The number of meetings depends on the number of students in the course.
  3. Each section meeting will have a different theme/topic.
  4. Students should bring to their section meeting: (1) Most recent journal submission; (2) Diagnostic worksheets completed prior to the class meeting; (3) the completed Roundtable Preparation Questions; (4) your Management 360 textbook; and (5) any other assignments communicated to you.
  5. Students arriving unprepared or late will be asked to attend a different section meeting.
  6. Students who miss all sections of a particular class session (thereby missing a particular theme/topic) will not be able to receive credit for the course.
  7. Students may need to change the date of their section meetings because they cannot attend during their assigned week. They are responsible for making this happen by trading places with a student in another section. If there are communication difficulties, the teacher will forward an appeal to the other students in the course.
DIAGNOSTIC WORKSHEETS (DW)
  1. Diagnostic worksheets are intended to facilitate reflective and critical thinking about various aspects of management and organizations. As an important part of that process, the questions ask you to give examples. This course has a very specific type of examples in mind, and you should read the instructions concerning them on WebCT, Forms Section, “Examples of Good Examples.”
  2. Students are responsible for completing all diagnostic worksheets regarding their sponsor organizations. The deadline for submitting each worksheet on WebCT is Thursday, as per the schedule given below. Never submit by email. Email submissions never count as a submission.
  3. Students are responsible for any research needed to answer the worksheets fully and accurately.
  4. Diagnostic Worksheets will be available for downloading at the course’s WebCT site approx. 2 weeks before they are due.
  5. Format Diagnostic Worksheets in HTML before submitting (see Journal formatting for details).
  6. After the first DW, be sure that all subsequent DW have the Basic Information Box at the top of the DW.
STUDENT SHORT CASE