Professional and Technical Writing Certificate

To earn the Professional & Technical Writing Certificate, students must take a 3 credit internship as ENG 4940, COM 3945, IDS 3949, or as a 3 credit internship arranged by their home department.

English Majors: English majors who intend to earn the PTWC should take ENG 4940: English Internship (contact Prof. Stephanie Anderson). ENG 4940 is pre-approved for the PTWC (it counts as 3 of 6 credits required towards Category I).

Communication Majors & Multimedia Studies Majors: Communication & Multimedia Studies majors who intend to earn the PTWC should take COM 3945: Communication Internship (contact Dr. Neil Santaniello). COM 3945 is pre-approved for the PTWC (it counts as 3 of 6 credits required towards Category I).

All Other Majors: All other majors who intend to earn the PTWC must take a 3 credit internship arranged by their home department OR arranged by the FAU Career Center (as IDS 3949: Professional Internship Course). Students who take their internships as IDS or arranged by their home department must get approval to ensure their internship counts towards their Category I requirements.

Internships taken outside of ENG or COM will be decided on a case-by-case basis, but in general, internships that count for the PTWC:

• must be 3 or more credits, taken as a for-credit course arranged through an FAU academic department OR through the FAU Career Center as IDS 3949: Professional Internship Course
• must represent a new learning experience (no PTWC internship credit given for current or past employment or volunteer activities, nor retroactively for previous internships)
• must adhere to all evaluation criteria of the arranging department or the Career Center; may be additional requirements for PTWC
• must involve professional or technical communications as the bulk of the student's internship/educational experience
• must be approved by the PTWC director to ensure it fulfills PTWC requirements.

ENG 4940 and COM 3945 are preapproved for the PTWC. 

All other internships must be approved to ensure fulfillment of PTWC requirements.

For approval, students must submit all internship paperwork to the PTWC director the semester before she or he intends to take the internship. Internship paperwork includes any/all departmental or Career Center policies and procedures, contracts, internship work descriptions or syllabi, and evaluation/assessment criteria. Students taking IDS 3949 must also submit a completed copy of their "Professional Internship (IDS 3949) Student Agreement."

If this paperwork isn't explicit about the sorts of professional and/or technical communication required for the internship, an additional letter, memo, or email from the internship supervisor may be required. (this communication can be brief, and should  list the types of professional communications the intern will engage in; confirm that professional and/or technical communications are the bulk of/central to the internship experience.)

Approval for PTWC is not guaranteed, even if the conditions above are met. For that reason, students are strongly encouraged to submit paperwork for approval as early as possible—at the latest, before the start of the semester in which a student is registered for an internship.