Internship

Dear readers,

are you interested in studying civil engineering with a classical specialisation or perhaps with a special focus on economic content? Then you will have gathered from our study guide that an internship of 8 weeks is required as part of these two degree programmes. In the following, I would like to explain why the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences considers this to be necessary.

The Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences considers your personal experience of practical work experience on a building site or in a factory to be necessary because it is essential for the success of your studies and your future career. The internship gives you an insight into the world of construction and familiarises you with construction methods, building materials and production techniques.
During your internship, you will familiarise yourself with work on construction sites and production in factories or workshops. This includes work in the fields of concrete, steel, timber and masonry construction as well as foundation engineering, earthworks, hydraulic engineering, road construction and tunnelling. They should also gain experience with the use of construction machinery and equipment in modern, machine-intensive construction work.
By experiencing the working conditions in the construction industry, you will learn about the social behaviour of those working on the construction site and the functional relationships of those involved in construction. Studying at an academic university cannot provide this experience.
Construction site experience should be acquired as early as possible. Among other things, they serve to recognise the tension between engineering planning on the one hand and practical implementation in the building on the other and to experience it from the perspective of the person carrying out the work, e.g. on the construction site.

This knowledge makes it easier to assess the practical relevance of theoretical course content on which engineering planning is based. Theoretical subject content includes scientific, in particular mathematical, descriptions of the properties of materials such as building materials, waste materials, soil, water, air and their physical and chemical interactions. The knowledge gained from experience, e.g. on the construction site, makes it easier for students to realise that these descriptions not only have to fulfil scientific requirements such as representativeness, completeness and reproducibility, but that they must ultimately be suitable for practical use by civil engineers. However, the requirements for the practical suitability of such a scientific description, e.g. of the load-bearing behaviour of a structure, are almost always economically justified with regard to the planning costs. The aim of the client is of course not to apply a beautiful theory, but to minimise the planning costs while at the same time minimising the construction costs and maximising the usability of the structure. The client therefore has no interest in an elaborate theory that causes excessive planning costs and planning time compared to an approximate solution or perhaps even a rule of thumb, if this does not reduce the construction costs by at least the same amount. However, if there is a lack of practical experience in the teaching of theoretical specialist content during the course of study, i.e. if this theoretical specialist content has not been recognised as one of the poles in the field of tension between engineering planning and practice, perhaps even in the worst case, if theory and practice have been perceived as opposites, then the decision that has to be made constantly in the everyday work of a civil engineer (when does the construction task require the application of a closed but complex theory, when is a mathematically based approximate solution sufficient and when is a simple rule of thumb appropriate, taking into account the specific construction site situation?) becomes an unsolvable problem.

The theoretical technical content forms only one of the poles of engineering planning in the field of tension described above. Another pole of planning is the choice of construction of the building. The construction consists of the type of parts of a structure, whereby the type of a component is determined by its form, material and function, and the way in which the components are joined together to form the structure itself. The choice of construction, the construction design, is a planning process with the aim of maximising the relationship between the benefits and construction costs of a building. The benefit of the building can be measured in square metres of living space, in the number of vehicles per hour or it can be assessed on the basis of a subjective perception of the beauty, form and surface (colour and texture) of a building and its parts.

The construction design is therefore an optimisation task that is characterised by a wealth of degrees of freedom and restrictions. Restrictions can be: ecological, aesthetic, spatial planning, building physics, static requirements, requirements for module dimensions and clearance profiles, tectonic and climatic boundary conditions and assembly conditions, properties and prices of building materials and their compatibility with each other, properties and prices of prefabricated and prefabricated building products, e.g. roof tiles, bricks, formwork panels, fasteners. The practical course offers the opportunity to experience at least some of these restrictions not as something abstractly mathematical, but as something real, e.g. something not fitting, rusting, etc., and perhaps even to feel them on or in the hands. This experience of the creation of a building can be very helpful for the construction design, as even in the age of extremely powerful computers it can only rarely be mapped as a mathematical optimisation process because it is too time-consuming, and is therefore predominantly created empirically in the style of the old master builders or with the help of the decision-making principle of trial and error. The fact that the design result is actually optimal in the mathematical sense described above is usually only claimed, assumed or hoped for, but rarely tested because it would be far too costly.
Let me give you two more good reasons in favour of the internship. It allows you to get to know and understand the people who will later turn your ideas and plans into reality. This experience should help you in the engineering profession to realistically assess the effects of your own arrangements and measures on the construction site or in the factory from the outset.

Duration

The required total duration of the internship is 8 weeks, but at least 290 working hours. The internship can be divided into individual sections of at least 2 weeks each (at least 70 working hours). It is strongly recommended that all or most of the internship is completed before the degree programme.

Internship content

The internship must be completed directly on construction sites or in construction companies. Practical work on the construction site (e.g. bricklaying, shuttering and striking, etc.) is required. Site manager and office activities as well as activities from the areas of responsibility of engineering offices cannot be recognised. It is recommended that you work in different areas of construction (building construction, road construction, etc.).

Suitable internship companies

The internship should take place in companies that are primarily involved in structural engineering in building construction, civil engineering and road construction. This also includes traditional craft businesses such as carpentries and bricklayers. Companies that mainly deal with refurbishment, renovation, interior work or installations are unsuitable.

Under Downloads you will find the document "Classification of Economic Activities", in which you can look up the suitable fields of activity under F41.2, F42, F43.1 and F43.9 on pages 3 to 5. The relevant sections are marked in green.

Please contact the Internship Office in advance if you are unsure whether a chosen internship company falls into the above-mentioned economic sector classifications.

The following can also be recognised as a complete internship:

• a journeyman's examination in a building trade
• an internship recognised by the Internship Office of another university

Periods of military service with pioneer units can only be recognised to a limited extent and for a maximum of 4 weeks (maximum 40 working hours per week).

Participation in courses and training programmes that impart special knowledge for construction work (e.g. on welding and formwork technology) can be partially credited towards the duration of the internship, depending on the objective of the course or training programme. Credit will be granted by the Internship Office on a case-by-case basis.

Internships in university institutes or laboratories, in public sector construction administrations and in companies that do not fall into the above-mentioned economic classifications cannot be recognised.

Interns apply independently and directly to suitable companies.

Suitable internship companies can be found as follows:

• Search for companies using a search engine with a combination of several keywords:
• Desired focus of activity (e.g. carpentry, road construction, reinforced concrete construction, bricklaying, roofing, or more generally: building construction, civil engineering, construction companies, etc.)
• Desired region
• Keywords such as "construction site internship" can help, but internships are not actively advertised by every suitable company. If in doubt, it helps to call the company in question.
• Search for the desired trade in the map view of a search engine
• Local Chamber of Crafts and Federal Employment Agency
• Job portals such as Indeed, LinkedIn, Stepstone, Monster, Xing etc.

If in doubt, it is strongly recommended that you contact the internship office before starting your internship.

Special regulations for health reasons

If a construction site internship is not possible for documented health reasons, a special arrangement can be agreed with the Internship Office.

Internship folder

The following entries must be made by hand:

Interns record their activities and the experience they have gained in an internship portfolio. This folder must contain the following:

• the completed "Internship record" form
• a work placement certificate from the respective company confirming the type and duration (weekly working hours and period of employment) of the work carried out
• a work placement report in which the following entries must be made by hand:
  • Indication of the daily work in keywords (daily reports)
  • details of the hours worked each day
  • a weekly, fully formulated report (at least one A4 page of text per week) of the work, observations and experiences gained on the construction site, possibly with explanatory sketches (weekly reports)

The daily and weekly reports must be submitted to the site manager of the training company on a weekly basis, stamped and signed by him. Otherwise the internship cannot be recognised.

It is recommended that you download the blank pages of the internship report, the internship certificate and the "Internship certificate" form from the Internship Office website and use them to prepare the internship report.

Recognition of the internship

Only internships completed in full, i.e. after completing all 8 weeks, will be recognised. Recognition is granted by the Internship Office after submission of the internship certificates and the internship booklet or the internship portfolio with the reports for the entire period. If the certificates are not in German or English, certified translations must be submitted.

The formalities of the internship booklet (see above) must be observed for recognition.

Please note that the internship booklet must be submitted to the Internship Office in good time for recognition, i.e. at least 4 weeks before registering for the Bachelor's thesis.

Posting of the internship certificate

Once the internship has been recognised by the Internship Office, the internship certificate will be issued for the Examination Office.

Insurance

Please note that there is no insurance cover from the university during the internship.

Delivery:

Please only hand in your internship report once you have completed the internship in full (8 weeks, min. 290 hours). The report must be submitted by scan and email to: praktikantenamt-bau(at)tu-braunschweig.de

The originals only have to be presented on request.

Recognition:

After reviewing your internship report, you will receive feedback from us by email. We reserve the right to a processing period of four weeks after submission of the report.

• Need for an internship
• Internship guidelines
• Trainee booklet
• Praktikumsbescheinigung
• Internship contract
• Praktikumsnachweis
• Suitable internship companies