Participation in local, state, national, or international private enterprise, public agencies, or nonprofit institutions. To obtain permission to register for the courses, students are required to submit proof that the work is related to their studies and the work will include a minimum of 180 hours during the semester. During the semester, the student will submit progress reports and a final report on their experience to the client and to the department. May be repeated up to a limit of 12 credits but can only be used once as a technical elective to satisfy CSE major requirements.
Prerequisites: CSE major, U3 or U4 standing; permission of department
To provide a mechanism to gain professional skills, create personal contacts, and gain first-hand experience in a computing-related field.
Please contact Prof. Kevin McDonnell with questions you have regarding CSE 488.
Send email to Prof. Ahmad Esmaili if you are an Information Systems (ISE) major and want to register for ISE 488.
CSE 488 may be used at most once as an upper-division technical elective to satisfy CSE major requirements.
CSE 488 can be used to satisfy your Stony Brook overall upper division credit requirement (39 credits) if you have not already reached that level.
CSE 488 can be used to satisfy a specialization requirement in some limited cases (e.g., CSE Game Programming specialization).
Since CSE 488 can be used as a technical elective to satisfy CSE major requirements, a student's internship must be of a sufficiently deep and meaningful technical nature to satisfy this requirement. Therefore, students seeking CSE 488 credit for an internship must be able to demonstrate that the position will require a significant amount of software development work (at least 90 hours out of the required 180 hours). In addition, there must be evidence that the potential internship will provide the student with work experience under the supervision and/or mentorship of a computing professional who will help foster the student's academic and professional development. Since CSE 488 carries EXP+ credit, it is also expected that interns will be working in a team alongside experienced software development professionals.
Internships with any of the following attributes will not be approved for CSE 488 credit:
an internship consisting primarily of IT support/help desk work and/or data analysis tasks
an internship at a company with fewer than 50 paid employees and/or at a recently started company
a research assistantship in an academic setting, for which CSE 487 is the applicable course
an internship that you completed in a prior term for which you now want to earn credit retroactively
If you are an international student holding an F-1 Student Visa, you cannot work in the United States during your studies unless you receive special permission. CPT, Curricular Practical Training and OPT, Optional Practical Training are employment authorizations given to students during their studies. This is a great chance to get hands-on-experience working for a company in the US in a way that enhances your education.
The rules of CPT and OPT require that the course fulfill a graduation requirement, from among the ones listed above in "General Requirements and Policies:"
To take advantage of this opportunity, you must:
Once you have secured an internship offer and have accepted the position, apply for CSE 488 credit from the CS Department.
Wait for your application to be considered. If approved, you will be given permission to enroll in CSE 488.
Follow the directions on SBU's Visa and Immigration Services website to apply for CPT.
CSE 488 is a 3-credit course with S/U grading that carries a tuition liability. Additionally, there are requirements that go beyond fulfilling your job resposibilities:
You will be required to submit regular reports to the course coordinator, the frequency of which depends on the length of the internship:
5-7 weeks: weekly reports
8-10 weeks: bi-weekly reports
11+ weeks: monthly reports
Each report must be in PDF format and submitted to the instructor via email. The report should contain a summary of what you did during the relevant time period and what you learned.
The name of the file must include your last name, followed by your first name, followed by the end of the reporting period. For example, for student John Smith whose report cover the period ending May 24, 2021, he would name his file Smith John 20210524.pdf
For unpaid internships only: please also request of your supervisor to send reports to the course coordinator directly at the same time. This can be a short email summarizing your work during the reporting period. The purpose of this report is to apprise the course coordinator of your progress and job performance, and to verify the contents of your own reports.
At the end of the internship term you must submit a minimum three-page final report that summaries your experiences. The filename must include the term of your internship and the words "Final Report" in it, e.g., Smith John Summer 2019 Final Report.pdf. The report must contain the following information:
Your name
Your SBU student ID #
The semester or term of your internship
A summary of your internship activities
A statement of computer science skills developed during the internship
A statement of relationship between activities and your Stony Brook coursework
A statement of the value of the internship experience in the development of your computer science skills.
At the end of your internship your supervisor must email a short (one-paragraph) summary of your accomplishments and job performance directly to the course coordinator.
Your offer letter must contain the following information:
name and physical location of your intended employer
exact start date of employment
exact end date of employment
exact amount of hours that you will be working total (must be at least 180 hours)
brief description of what you will be doing
name and contact information of your supervisor