Internships & Curricular Practical Training (CPT)
The ILS graduate programs allow graduate students in good standing with their respective programs to perform outside internships related to their major field of study with permission of their PI. Students interested in performing an internship should seek the permission of their PI prior to applying for internships. While perusing an internship offer, students are encouraged to talk to their graduate advisor and graduate program staff to ensure compliance with academic and administrative requirements respectively at least 8 weeks prior to the estimated start of the internship.
Participation in an internship creates several administrative issues that need time to be resolved on an individual basis prior to the scheduled start of the internship:
- Visa: international students on an F-1 visa need to obtain temporary employment authorization called Curricular Practical Training (CPT), please visit Texas Global.
- Financial Support: faculty are not required to provide the standard financial student support during the semester of an internship.
- Enrollment & Insurance: during a long semester (Fall/Spring) students must be enrolled to qualify to purchase academic insurance.
- Domestic Students who do not require insurance through the university may request a Leave of Absence for the semester of their internship and forgo enrollment for that semester.
- Domestic Students who have not yet entered candidacy have the option of enrolling in EXP 000/080: Internships & Career Experiences, a free, zero-credit course which will allow them to maintain enrollment and purchase UT student insurance for the semester.
- Per the international office rules, International students will be charged for insurance unless they complete the needed ISSS waiver showing that they have insurance for that time period from another source. ISSS waiver information
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Conflict of Interest: the student needs to declare any potential conflict of interest created by their participation in the internship, please visit https://research.utexas.edu/ors/conflict-of-interest/
Returning to UT
The time you are at your internship constitutes a break in your employment at UT.
Please make sure you have spoken with ILS Admin about your return to UT. Graduate employment has a specific employment start date for each semester, so be sure you are aware of the employment start date for your ‘return’ to UT.
Because you had a break in employment:
- You will be required to complete a new I-9 by your first day of employment. Please make sure you start with enough time to complete it prior to that deadline.
- You will have onboarding tasks that you need to review/complete in Workday. Make sure you complete these in a timely fashion, as failure to do so can negatively impact your payroll processing and insurance enrollment.
- You will likely need to re-enroll in UT employment-based insurance. Please keep an eye out for enrollment information emails from UT Benefits.