INTERNSHIPS: A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCE OF UNIVERSITY-PRIVATE COMPANIES INTEGRATION IN THE FORMATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERS

Abstract

The Colombian Ministry of Education to grant Educational accreditation for academic excellence, establishes as a fundamental aspect the assessment and monitoring of impacts generated by the environmental engineering graduates and solutions that provides the degree to the local needs. Therefore, current pedagogical models used in the faculties of engineering, reaffirmed in the training cycles ideal and present spaces to contextualize their theoretical knowledge through praxis. A concrete example is the inclusion of a professional internship complementary to the professional cycle, allowing fulfilling the training process, by applying knowledge and skills acquired in the training process considered by the challenges of their activities, while their first job skills are developed. For the specific case of Environmental Engineering program of the institution, the processes of professional practice have generated a positive impact and acceptance by the private sector, linking to the company workforce 46.2% of students who have completed the process, which represents 17.6% of the total who have developed the program, showing an articulation between program curricular structure with the productive public / private sector needs.

Keywords: Articulation University-Society-Private Company, Course Design, Professional training, pedagogical
processes.