The Entermode Mentor’s Guide

There is no doubt that during the last decade the practice of internship has really taken a boost, with more and more Higher Education Institutions and enterprises respectively sending and receiving interns.
For the students, putting academic theory into practice, getting familiar with a workplace, interacting with colleagues and managers, receiving feedback for their work and getting to know their pros and cons are only a few of the many benefits that internship can offer at once.

Pause for a bit and move on to another essential element of today’s ever evolving professional world: the entrepreneurial mindset! In the fast-paced world in which we currently live, business practices, working methods and business interactions change rapidly. Being able to identify and adjust to these changes on time is what separates a leader from a follower and it all has to do with entrepreneurial thinking.

Pause once again and think of how great it would be to combine these two elements, hence developing an entrepreneurial mindset while going through an internship.
Press play again and get to know the EnterMode project!

The main output of EnterMode is an Internship Model which provides HEIs and companies with a methodology on how to enhance the entrepreneurial competences of students during their internships, by using challenge-based learning and by incorporating a Community of Practice and a serious game.

The Internship Model is accompanied by a Mentor’s Guide, which gives methodological guidelines, templates and specific examples on how to implement the EnterMode internship model. The guide is addressed to company mentors and HEI tutors and provides step-by-step instructions for every stage of the EnterMode internships.

In particular, the guide gives information on:
– How to issue the EnterMode call for students and companies (preselection phase, signing of Memorandum of Understanding)
– Steps to be taken before the start of the internship (matching of students, internship plan, learning agreement)
– Steps to be taken during the internship (examples on how to implement the EnterMode model and its components)
– Assessment after the internship
– Functionalities of the EnterMode Community of Practice
– Templates to be used by company mentors and HEI tutors

The first draft of the guide is ready and will be soon tested through the pilot phase!

The 5 universities of the partnership (Semmelweis University, Technical University of Košice, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Pegaso Università Telematica and Ioannina University) will each select 8 students who will do an internship according to the EnterMode Internship Model. 5 of them will be hosted by local enterprises, 3 by enterprises abroad, and among these receiving institutions there will be the rest of the project’s partners (IDEC, Trebag, Greek SAE & EPE Association, Inqubator, eucen, CCS, P&W and Astra) along with additional companies.

During the internship, the methods and tools of the Internship Model will be put into test and constantly monitored and evaluated both by trainers and interns.

After the internship is over, all feedback will be gathered and processed by the project’s partners in order for them to proceed to all the needed changes in the model and the guide, and therefore make it as efficient and complete as possible. Furthermore, the EnterMode Mentor’s Guide will be enriched with testimonials and experiences gathered during the pilot phase, in order to underline the benefits for all involved actors, mainly the company and the intern.

After the Internship Model and the Mentor’s Guide are finalised, they will be available, free of charge, for every company or HEI that is interested in adopting them for their internship programmes!

Nowadays, it would be impossible not to mention the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating effects on a plethora of aspects of our lives. As a response to the restrictions set by EU most countries, the EnterMode partnerships has decided to apply the piloting of the model online and therefore organise virtual internships complementary to the face-to-face ones.

So, stay tuned to find out more about the results of our piloting phase!