Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Internships

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Minor & Major

You need a minor and major internship for your Bioinformatics and Systems Biology MSc degree
10 months (60 ects) total of internships
minimum 3 months (18 ects)
Minor (X_405032) and Major (X_405027) must be in a different research group and on a different topic
Sufficient algorithmic and biological content, as determined by your IBIVU supervisor
You cannot start your internship before you have passed your deficiency modules (biology and programming for Bioinformatics and biology and calculus for Systems Biology)
You cannot start your major internship before you have completed all your compulsory and profile courses.
Please note that if you want to graduate by the end of the academic year (31 August), you need to plan your presentation in Period 6 (June). Due to holidays we otherwise do not have presentation slots or time for grading and registering of results available.

Make a shortlist and discuss it with your Mentor.
- How to find an internship place in Bioinformatics and/or Systems Biology?
- You can pick from the Open Master Projects, or draft your own
Time you should allow to plan your intership (typically):
- 6 months if you want to go abroad (see below)
- 2-3 months if you want to go to a company (sorting out the Internship Contract tends to take at least 6 weeks)
- 1-2 months for an academic group

Select a topic together with your daily supervisor at your internship placement
- For an internship in an other country there are some additional things to organise
In addition, you must always have a supervisor from the master staff
Write a Project Plan, and get it approved by all supervisors
- Get a provisional presentation date
Get your Internship Contract signed by all supervisors
Add your project to the Running Projects
Sign yourself up via VUnet for the correct course code

Contact your 'daily' supervisor at least once a week
Contact your supervisor every month
- report progress
- indicate problems
- indicate when you think to finish
- indicate any changes to the Project Plan
Your daily supervisor should contact your supervisor at start and end of the project, and at least every other month.
We strongly encourage you to give a mid-term presentation during your project. If this is not possible at your placement, you can always give a talk at the IBIVU, please contact your VU-supervisor for an appointment. You could present:
- your approach
- preliminary results
- any problems

Project Thesis:
- Please check the Project Thesis Guide Lines
- your code needs to be included (as appendix or electronically)
- your daily supervisor should hand in an approved final version of your thesis, together with the completed evaluation form (sections "Research" and "Thesis"), one week prior to your presentation

Final Presentation:
- always (at least) at the VU or UvA (with your VU/UvA supervisor)
- Get approvement from your supervisor(s) to give your presentation
- two weeks before the presentation you need to hand in your thesis with your VU or UvA supervisor for grading.
- you should hand in the approved final version of your thesis, together with the completed evaluation form (see below), one week prior to your presentation
- Make an appointment (only one presentation per day)
- Please check the Presentation Guide Lines
- You should ask your (daily) supervisor for feedback on your slides, before you give the final presentation.

Evaluation Form:
- Get the form, and ask your supervisors to complete it.
  - (This PDF form can be filled in electronically. The fields for 'Masters programme' and 'Specialisation' are actually pull-down lists, though not all PDF viewers show that clearly. The other fields as well as the radio buttons for the scores can also be filled in electronically. Unfortunately, in some PDF viewers the pull down menus and fields do not work; you may need to try a few.)
- Grades are formally awarded by your IBIVU supervisor, based on advise by the daily supervisor (via the form).
- Final grade is based on work (1/2), thesis (1/3) and presentation (1/6)
- Your thesis and a copy of the evaluation form are archived by the VU educational office