Am I allowed to (and should I) accept an offer to intern at a private company during the Fall semester? For context I was awarded the scholarship this year and my first SMART internship will be during Summer 2026. I have 3 more years of college.
My main questions
- Are external internships allowed during fall/spring semesters?
- Skipping a semester of school may push back my graduation by 1 semester. How lenient are they about that?
Thanks for the help!
External Internship
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phase1phd
Re: External Internship
You are not allowed to do that. You have to be a full time student every fall and spring until you graduate, unless there are circumstances truly beyond your control. That being said, there’s no rule against working if you remain enrolled full time and progress toward graduation.
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coop maybe
Re: External Internship
I have a similar question. I am a current college sophomore. I will be applying this year to smart scholarship (to start fall 2026) and have received a coop offer for an engineering coop for the spring 2026 semester. As long as I stay in fall/spring full time school starting fall 2026, it is fine that I do the engineering coop in spring 2026? I am currently in college fall 2025 and can produce a transcript showing that.
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phase1BS
Re: External Internship
Yes you may do COOP, just make sure your graduation date on the SMART application reflects an accurate graduation date including the COOP. They just want to make sure that whenever they are paying that you are in school.