EmTech Internship, Certification and Placement
Internship or Intrapreneurship
If you are not full-time employed during the EmTech program, you will be encouraged to seek out a
paid or unpaid part-time or full-time internship either prior to or during your thesis. You may or
may not be successful in obtaining your ideal internship, but experience shows that the process of
identifying and seeking out great internship options is itself very helpful your professional
development. Ideally this client will be in an industry related to your thesis. If you are working
full-time while taking the EmTech program we don’t recommend an additional part-time internship,
but you may still consider pursuing an intrapreneurship experience, in which you work with a new
team or new project within your current company as part of your thesis. If you can aim to do at
least one internship or intrapreneurship during the program, for a minimum of six months, you will
have gained valuable new experience and professional benefit. These experiences aid and can lead
to better job placement.
Certification
In Summer (May-August) of Year 1 or Year 2, after MSC545, interested students are encouraged to
review for and sit for a Certified Professional Forecaster
exam, offered by the Institute for Business Forecasting and Planning. To be certified, students must score 70% or higher on each of
three 100-150 question multiple choice exams ($350 per exam, $1050 total). These exams cover
basic forecasting and planning processes, basic data analysis and time series models, and basic
business practice in forecast reporting, communication, and stakeholder inclusion. If you work
or expect to work in a foresight, forecasting, planning, or management role, you may find the CPF
credential to be a valuable professional distinction. The study text recommended for the exam,
Practical Guide to Business Forecasting, Chaman Jain, 2005 is a required text in MSC545,
Forecasting Emergent Technologies, and is used throughout the curriculum.
Placement
EmTech grads are ready to work in technology FIS roles in the following client types: startup,
corporate, consulting, nonprofit, journalism, education, government, military, security, assessment,
policy, and other organizations. They use the EmTech wiki to generate job options for their client
type and industry preference. Students also evaluate their workplace strengths using Gallup's
StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment, and are challenged to describe clients and careers that best fit
their strengths. EmTech faculty, advisors, the program champion, and UAT career planning and placement
staff help our students design placement-advancing theses, research excellent career options, network
in professional associations, plan internship or intrapreneurship activities, and use the EmTech program
as a stepping stone to the best job and career they can achieve.