By 2021, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology established a program called Merdeka Belajar – Kampus Merdeka which allows student to earn course credit (SKS) from activities such as student exchange, applied internship, research, etc. At our Faculty, these activities will be recognized as Mandatory Internship course. To support this program, the Faculty of Psychology encourages our students to independently choose a program they believe will be beneficial for their self-development, and commit to accommodate students’ needs afterwards. Apart from fulfilling all courses required, including the Mandatory Internship course, IUP students are also obliged to complete their International Academic Exposure (IAE) point. To facilitate our students, the IUP is offering a system that will enable students to merge the Mandatory Internship Course with International Academic Exposure activities, which we introduce to you as Integration of IAE Program and Mandatory Internship course.
The first IAE program integrated with the Mandatory Internship Course is the student exchange program. Students participating in this program are expected to take 14 course credits (SKS) at the host university during semester 4 or semester 5. The IUP strongly recommends students to take this program because students will complete the 4 IAE points needed and fulfill the credits for the Mandatory Internship course in one go. By joining this program, students must also acknowledge several consequences, such as:
- courses taken to fulfill the Mandatory Internship course will not be listed in the transcript, but will appear on IAE certificate
- there is a possibility that students will graduate in semester 8 rather than semester 7, as they might be obliged to finish courses that they have not taken yet during exchange
For the short academic visit program, students are recommended to take short courses that will enable them to fulfill 14 SKS, for instance 4 courses of 3 SKS and 1 course of 2 SKS. Students may participate in these courses at once in one semester or in 2 semesters. Similar to the exchange program, the 14 credits gained from the short course programs will then be recognized as Mandatory Internship course. If students choose this program, students must acknowledge that they would need to take multiple short courses, possibly held by different institutions. Apart from that, students have to ensure that all courses are fixed before the course enrollment period.
Students choosing the research internship program are expected to conduct a research as an assistant to a researcher involved in an international research collaboration. To be eligible for IAE points, students are only obliged to fulfil a minimum of 12 hours. However, to gain 1 SKS from this program, students should fulfil minimum of 46 hours.
Students applying for applied internship are expected to be an intern at a foreign institution/organization. To be eligible for IAE points, students are obliged to fulfil minimum of 40 hours. However, to gain credit conversion from this activity, students need to consider whether they will join the MBKM program from the Ministry of Education and Culture (earning up to 20 SKS) or register in an internship program at non-government/non-partner institution.
For the volunteering program, students are expected to volunteer at foreign institution/organization. To be eligible for IAE points, students are only obliged to fulfil minimum of 40 hours.
Overall, the Internship course can be integrated with most of IAE programs, therefore students do not have to take two different activities. Students are obliged to take 14 SKS of Mandatory Internship course, in which the student exchange program offers the highest possibility to fulfill this obligation through one activity.