Internships at the University of Turku

Students who arrive at the University of Turku for an internship can be considered as employees, depending on whether their internship is paid or not. If the internship is paid, the student is counted as an employee and is entitled to employment benefits and services. If the internship is unpaid, the student is not considered an employee and is not entitled to employee benefits or services.

Please also notice that the interns at the University of Turku will not be registered as students and they are not entitled to the student benefits. This means that you will have higher living costs in Turku than e.g. an exchange student.

How to apply?
If you wish to do your internship at UTU, you have to contact directly the unit you wish to host you during the internship. The best way is to send an email to the potential host with CV. Please notice that your are required to be very independent on finding a host.
 
 
Interns fill in an Internship agreement with their host at the University of Turku. This is additional to any other documents that you may need to provide for your home institution. 
 
Studies during internship
If you wish to study at the University of Turku during your internship, you need to apply for non-degree study right and you are expected to pay a fee for the courses you take.
 
Please note that non-degree study right does not entitle you to the student benefits.
 
Practical matters and services at the university
  • Take care of a medical insurance before your arrival in Turku - it  has to be valid for the whole internship period.
  • Plan your budget to cover all the living expenses during your stay in Turku

Interns at UTU are entitled to the following services

Housing

Look for the housing well in advance. The Erasmus Internship students cannot apply the exchange student housing except in the summer.

Finding housing for a short period of time from the general rental markets in Turku is difficult especially during August and September. Normally the rental agreements are done for a fixed period of a year and earlier resignation requires a penalty fee to be paid by the tenant.
You can take a look for rental apartments for example from following webpages.:

Erasmus placements

Erasmus Placement interns are considered as employees of the host organization only if the internship is paid. An Erasmus+ grant does not count as a salary, and therefore it is not enough for a student to be counted as an employee. Please notice that the interns at the University of Turku will not be registered as students and they are not entitled to the student benefits.

In addition, your home university might have a different interpretation of an Erasmus Placement status, therefore, please take this into the consideration already before you apply for Turku. 

The International Office of University of Turku doesn't provide or process any Erasmus internships. The supervisor of the internship will sign all the necessary documents.