Internships

Although internships are not mandatory in our curriculum, gaining experience in a research group or company - whether at LMU/TUM, partner institutions, industry, or external labs (including abroad) - can be highly beneficial. Internships help you apply concepts from your studies in real-world settings, build professional skills, and explore different work environments. They are also a good way to test whether you prefer academia or industry and to expand your international network if undertaken in another country.

Internships and university modules

Internships without connections to university modules

Internships that are not connected to university modules are more easy to organize. However, if the host organization is located in certain countries (e.g. France), it may be necessary to still set up an agreement between the host organization and the university. If this is the case, this can be arranged via both LMU and TUM. For LMU, the career service is responsible for this.

Internships with connections to university modules

There are some university modules that are potentially suitable to be completed as part of an internship:

Praktische Arbeit (PA)
Bachelor’s thesis
Fortgeschrittenen Praktikum Bioinformatik (FoPraBio)
Master’s thesis

However, there are some key requirements:

You need to find an examiner from TUM or LMU
For PA and FoPraBio, you need an approving member of the examination board, if the examiner is not a member of the examination board
For the thesis projects, you need a second examiner - and either the first or the second examiner needs to be a member of the examination board

So if you are doing an internship, you will spend most of the time at the internship institution. However, you always need to find at least one member of the examination board, that approves of the collaboration.

To argue your case to the examiner/examination board member, you need to think about the following questions:

How is the supervision structured? If the internship is done at a private company, knowledge flows from the university to the company if the student is actively supervised by a member of TUM/LMU. This is called “Transferleistung” and requires agreement between the university and the company. This can be quite complicated.
What will be graded? Results from the work at private companies are often subject to non-disclosure agreements. Before you start the internship, you need to clarify with the company what you can write about in your thesis or project report.
Who owns the intellectual property? This is a complex question, as it depends on the company and the country.

In general, the above points are easy to address when doing the internship at a university. But when doing the internship at a private company, it can be more difficult.

An example of a potentially working setup looks like this:

The student is not actively supervised by a member of TUM/LMU (to prevent “Transferleistung”)
All the supervision is done by the company
The company is willing to allow the student to write about the work at the company in their thesis or project report
The examiner only receives the final report and potentially a presentation, that will be graded

Erasmus scholarship

Erasmus offers scholarships for internships in other EU countries. The scholarships are 750€ per month for a duration of 2 to 4 months. If the internship is longer, one can potentially split the internship into two parts. This needs to be discussed with the responsible person at LMU or TUM.

The deadlines for applications are not the same as for exchange semester applications. Instead, one just needs to apply at least four weeks before the start of the internship. However, it is advisable to get in touch with the responsible person as soon as possible to discuss the details of the internship and the necessary paperwork. It can take a while to get all the paperwork done.

Students of the bioinformatics bachelor’s and master’s programs can apply for the Erasmus scholarship via both LMU and TUM. Also at TUM, if the income from paid internships exceeds 1000€ per month, one is not eligible for the Erasmus scholarship. At LMU, this limit is not applicable. In previous cases, students have made good experiences with the application process at LMU.

Details about the Erasmus application process at LMU can be found here, and the same for TUM here.

Types of internships

There are three different types of internships when it comes to Erasmus:

Mandatory internships

This is the case if the internship is related to a module in the study program. For example, if the internship is connected to the module FoPraBio, the internship is mandatory, even though the module is elective. Also if the internship is connected to a thesis project, the internship is mandatory, even though one could have done the thesis project directly at LMU/TUM without the need for an internship.

Voluntary internships

This covers internships that are not related to a module in the study program, meaning that no ECTS are awarded for the work done during the internship. In this case, the student can do a leave of absence for the duration of the internship.

Postgraduate internships

This covers internships that are done within one year after the completion of the studies.