Translation internships and mentoring – survey for universities/colleges

This survey is part of a series that aims to explore translation internships and mentoring from the viewpoint of different stakeholders: interns/mentees, mentors, organizations running internship programs, educational institutions and translator associations. Through a mixture of learning by doing, expert supervision and building a professional network, internships and mentoring programs serve to accelerate the transition of early-career translators into the profession. Yet graduating students are often under pressure from their educational institutions to complete an internship in order to gain credits, but the internship environment is often quite different from their future work environment. Therefore this series of surveys aims to identify best practices for internship and mentoring so that students, mentors and other stakeholders can make better choices in planning and implementing their internship and mentoring programs.

Please complete this survey if you represent a university/college.

If you participated in an internship/mentoring program as an intern/mentee, please complete our dedicated survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-I.
If you acted as a mentor, please complete our survey for mentors, https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-M.
If you represent a translator association that has promoted internship/mentoring programs, please complete our survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-A.

If you represent an organization that runs internship programs, please complete our survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-O.

Please also share information about these surveys among other stakeholders.

Most questions in the present survey are in multiple-choice format with predefined answers that will help us establish some useful statistics. Text boxes are added for comments after each question, and we expect to gain insight from the added comments. Please use these fields to express your views in a more specific way than what the answer options allow. The survey can be completed in 10 to 15 minutes even if you add comments to most questions.

When you click on “Next page”, you will see all questions. There are no mandatory fields: you can skip any question that you do not wish to answer. Yet, detailed information, including demographic data, will help us identify trends in much more detail. All information you provide will be treated anonymously unless you specify otherwise.

We plan to publish the full survey report and make it available for free to survey participants and other interested parties. Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. I thank my colleagues, Catherine Howard and Maria Karra, for their help in creating this survey.

Attila Piróth
Freelance translator

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* 1. What university/college do you represent?

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* 2. In which country is your university/college?

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* 3. What is your role at the university/college?

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* 4. What languages are included in your program for translation students? [Select all that apply]

Afrikaans

Albanian

Amharic

Arabic

Armenian

Assamese

Azerbaijani

Belarusian

Bengali

Bosnian

Brazilian Portuguese

Bulgarian

Burmese

Cantonese

Catalan

Cebuano

Chechen

Chinese

Croatian

Czech

Danish

Dari (Afghan Persian)

Dutch

Dzongkha

English

Estonian

Faroese

Fiji

Finnish

Flemish

French

Fula

German

Greek

Greenlandic

Gujarati

Haitian Creole

Hausa

Hebrew

Hindi

Hmong

Hungarian

Icelandic

Igbo

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese

Javanese

Kannada

Kashmiri

Kazakh

Khmer

Korean

Kurdish

Lao

Latvian

Lingala

Lithuanian

Luxemburgish

Macedonian

Malagasy

Malay

Malayalam

Maltese

Mandarin

Maori

Marathi

Moldovan

Mongolian

Nauru

Nepali

Norwegian

Norwegian (Nynorsk)

Oriya

Oromo

Pashto

Persian (Farsi)

Polish

Portuguese

Punjabi

Quechua

Romanian

Russian

Samoan

Serbian

Serbo-Croatian

Sesotho

Setswana

Shona

Sindhi

Sinhala

Slovak

Slovene

Somali

Spanish

Sundanese

Swahili

Swedish

Tagalog

Tahitian

Tajik

Tamil

Tatar

Telugu

Thai

Tibetan

Tongan

Tsonga

Turkish

Turkmen

Ukrainian

Urdu

Uzbek

Vietnamese

Welsh

Wolof

Xhosa

Yiddish

Yoruba

Zulu

Other (please specify)

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* 5. What translation certificates / degrees can be obtained at your university/college?

Non-degree certificate

BA degree

MA or MSc degree

PhD degree

Other (please specify)

Comments

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* 6. Do translation students typically pay for their courses or are these free at your university/college?

	N/A	Typically paid for	Typically free	Other	I prefer not to answer
Non-degree certificate	Non-degree certificate N/A	Non-degree certificate Typically paid for	Non-degree certificate Typically free	Non-degree certificate Other	Non-degree certificate I prefer not to answer
BA degree	BA degree N/A	BA degree Typically paid for	BA degree Typically free	BA degree Other	BA degree I prefer not to answer
MA or MSc degree	MA or MSc degree N/A	MA or MSc degree Typically paid for	MA or MSc degree Typically free	MA or MSc degree Other	MA or MSc degree I prefer not to answer
PhD degree	PhD degree N/A	PhD degree Typically paid for	PhD degree Typically free	PhD degree Other	PhD degree I prefer not to answer

Comments (please consider indicating the fee translation students typically pay per year)

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* 7. Is an internship/mentorship program part of your university/college curriculum for translation students?

Yes – a compulsory part

Yes – an optional part

Other

Comments

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* 8. What percentage of translation students complete an internship before obtaining their certificate / degree?

	100%	80-99%	60-79%	41-59%	21-40%	1-20%	0%
Non-degree certificate	Non-degree certificate 100%	Non-degree certificate 80-99%	Non-degree certificate 60-79%	Non-degree certificate 41-59%	Non-degree certificate 21-40%	Non-degree certificate 1-20%	Non-degree certificate 0%
BA degree	BA degree 100%	BA degree 80-99%	BA degree 60-79%	BA degree 41-59%	BA degree 21-40%	BA degree 1-20%	BA degree 0%
MA or MSc degree	MA or MSc degree 100%	MA or MSc degree 80-99%	MA or MSc degree 60-79%	MA or MSc degree 41-59%	MA or MSc degree 21-40%	MA or MSc degree 1-20%	MA or MSc degree 0%
PhD degree	PhD degree 100%	PhD degree 80-99%	PhD degree 60-79%	PhD degree 41-59%	PhD degree 21-40%	PhD degree 1-20%	PhD degree 0%

Comments

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* 9. How do students find internship programs? [Select all that apply]

N/A

Through their own research or their own contacts

Professors suggest internship programs to them or put them in contact with someone offering an internship program

The university/college degree program matches students up with specific internship programs

The university/college has a dedicated translation center where students can work as interns

Other (please explain)

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* 10. Do students get credits for completing an internship?

Yes

Other

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* 11. What is the credit equivalent at your university/college of a full-time two-month internship?

Not applicable – there is no credit equivalence

A one-semester course of 1-2 hours per week

A one-semester course of 3-4 hours per week

A one-semester course of 5-6 hours per week

A one-semester course of 7-8 hours per week

A one-semester course of 9-10 hours per week

A one-semester course of 11-12 hours per week

A one-semester course of 13-14 hours per week

A one-semester course of 15-16 hours per week

A one-semester course of 17-18 hours per week

A one-semester course of 19-20 hours per week

A one-semester course of more than 20 hours per week

Comments

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* 12. What is the average/typical length of the internship programs completed by your translation students? (Round it to the closest whole number unless the duration was less than 1 month. Please do not include those students in the average who do not complete an internship program.)

Less than 1 month

1 months

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7-9 months

10-12 months

13 months or more

Comments

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* 13. What internship/mentoring programs are eligible for credits at your university/college? [Select all that apply]

Translation internship position at a publishing company

Translation internship position at a translation company

Translation internship position at a public service institution

Translation internship position at the dedicated translation center of your university/college

Translation internship position at an organization that needs translations (and does not fall in any of the above categories)

Mentorship program organized by a translator association (consider specifying which one in the comments)

Mentorship program organized by a freelance translator

Other (please specify)

Comments

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* 14. Please describe the criteria internship programs have to meet to be eligible for credits at your university/college

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* 15. How does your university/college oversee internship programs? [Select all that apply]

N/A

My university/college does not oversee internship programs in any way

My university/college screens internship programs before letting students apply to be an intern

My university/college monitors the internship program as it is underway by requiring a progress report from the participating students and/or the organization where they have an internship

My university/college evaluates the internship program after it is concluded by requiring the organization to write a report about their training activities and the participating students’ contributions

My university/college evaluates the internship program after it was concluded by requiring participating students to write a paper about their internship experience and what they learned

My university/college oversees this internship program in another way (please specify):

Comments

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* 16. What measures do you use to monitor whether the internship follows the pre-established program?

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* 17. Are internship programs regularly re-evaluated based on students’ feedback to assess their effectiveness / fitness for purpose? If so, how?

Yes (Please describe in detail)

I don't know

I prefer not to answer

Comments (Details)

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* 18. Has it ever happened that your university/college withdrew its approval for an internship program?

Yes (Please describe in detail)

I don't know

I prefer not to answer

Comments (Details)

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* 19. Do students get paid for their participation in internship programs?

Always

Mostly

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

I don’t know

I prefer not to answer

Comments

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* 20. What percentage of your students are offered a full-time in-house work contract at the interning organization at the end of their internship program?

0-10%

11-20%

21-40%

41-60%

61-80%

81-100%

I don’t know

I prefer not to answer

Comments

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* 21. What percentage of your students are offered a part-time in-house work contract at the interning organization at the end of their internship program?

0-10%

11-20%

21-40%

41-60%

61-80%

81-100%

I don’t know

I prefer not to answer

Comments

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* 22. What percentage of your students are offered subcontracted work at the interning organization at the end of their internship program?

0-10%

11-20%

21-40%

41-60%

61-80%

81-100%

I don’t know

I prefer not to answer

Comments

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* 23. What percentage of your translation graduates work as translators today?


Graduates who obtained their degree in the past 5 years	Graduates who obtained their degree in the past 5 years menu
Graduates overall (regardless of their year of graduation)	Graduates overall (regardless of their year of graduation) menu

Comments

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* 24. Do you have a partnership agreement with professional associations on internships/mentoring programs?

Yes (please specify which professional association)

Comments

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* 25. What kinds of problems has your university/college encountered in its internship programs? How did learn about them and what measures were taken to address them?

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* 26. What best practices would you recommend that other universities/colleges follow concerning translation internship programs?

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* 27. Please share any further details about how translation internship programs are handled at your university/college

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* 28. Please add here any comments about this survey

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* 29. If you feel comfortable with adding your name and email address, please do so here. It will allow us to contact you with questions related to the survey (if you approve), and send you a copy of the survey report.

	Yes	No
I can be contacted directly about this survey	I can be contacted directly about this survey Yes	I can be contacted directly about this survey No
Send me a copy of the survey report	Send me a copy of the survey report Yes	Send me a copy of the survey report No
Contact me directly with similar surveys in the future	Contact me directly with similar surveys in the future Yes	Contact me directly with similar surveys in the future No
My name can be added to my comments cited in the survey report	My name can be added to my comments cited in the survey report Yes	My name can be added to my comments cited in the survey report No

Name and email address