Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Co-Operative Education - This is a technical term for Internship

To enroll in this course, you have to locate a criminal justice agency or closely related field to complete at minimum 90-hours of work or volunteer time during the term. Many agencies require a background, which takes time. What this means is you need to plan ahead for the term you are wishing to complete an internship. You can also take this course while working in the CJ field.

Two forms are required. One is an agreement between you and the organization you are going to intern with. The second is five learning objectives while completing the internship. Those forms and more information about this can be found on this page. There are also examples of learning objectives on this page. https://spaces.pcc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=94211031

Once the forms are completed and signed by you and the agency, you will submit them to the instructor for approval. The instructor will send them to the learning specialist to enroll you in the course.

The page also has some contact information for different agencies. Instructors are not allowed to recommend specific locations to intern, so you would have to make some contacts on your own. Areas that would qualify are Police, Corrections, Parole and Probation, Juvenile detention or probation, working with the courts, forensics, pre-trial release, etc. One note about patrol style interns. Often it can be just ride alongs, this does not fulfill the learning objectives, so make sure you are allowed to do more than ride alongs or filing paperwork.

No technology is specifically required for this course. There are forms to complete and submit as well as a term paper. It will be beneficial to have a computer and internet, but PCC also has these resources available on campus.