The academic expectations for the Connecting Experience are at the discretion of the faculty mentor and should be spelled out by the faculty mentor and the student in the Connecting Experience contract at the beginning of the semester. Whether the Connecting Experience is a research experience or an internship, you have the discretion to ask the student to complete readings and assignments that will enhance the experience and support the academic side of the student’s learning. We do ask that you consider the level and intensity of the requirements for the experience as a whole, so as not to either overburden the student or make the workload too light. (For example, if a student is dedicating 160 hours to an internship, it might be more appropriate to require short writing assignments, readings, or journal entries rather than a long research paper.)
At the close of the semester, you will be asked to assign a grade to the student. All BDP Connecting Experiences may be graded using the plus/minus grading system. Students have the option of changing their grading for their Connecting Experience from the default letter grade basis to pass/fail. Students are only permitted to count one pass/fail course toward their BDP certificate, however, so it is the student’s responsibility to determine whether they have other pass/fail courses already planned for their certificate.
See the Connecting Experience Process for more information about grade reporting for BDP Connecting Experience courses.
Grading Internship Experiences
Many faculty mentors are uncertain how to grade internship Connecting Experiences since so much of the work students do is off-campus.
If you are mentoring a student in an internship experience, we recommend including assignments that students are required to turn in to you as part of the basis for grading. View suggestions for assignments for some ideas. These assignments serve to provide an academic component to the internship experience, so students are placing their internship work within the academic context of their BDP topic and their major discipline(s). The emphasis for the graded work is then the student learning from the internship, rather than the student’s day-to-day performance in the internship.
The BDP office also contacts internship supervisors toward the end of the semester to gather feedback on students’ performance. Typically, we have a high response rate from supervisors. If we get feedback from your student’s supervisor, we will send you the feedback when we contact you at the end of the semester about grade reporting processes. You are welcome to consider this feedback as part of the basis for the grade you assign.
For questions about grading students in Connecting Experiences, please contact Larissa Noake.