Engineering professional practice

All students enrolled in either the Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)/Master Engineering or Master Engineering program, need to complete 450 hours of professional practice. Professional practice hours can be claimed for a range of professional practice activities in addition to professional practice in an engineering environment assisting or under the supervision of a professional engineer.

All students enrolled in either the Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)/Master Engineering or Master Engineering program, need to complete 450 hours of professional practice. Professional practice is a compulsory requirement of your degree and you will not be able to graduate until it is complete. 

Yes, any student wishing to undertake unpaid professional practice must complete the Unpaid Professional Practice Placement Form and submit it approval to the EAIT Student Employability Team via employability@eait.uq.edu.au at least 2 (two) days before commencing unpaid placements.

If you are undertaking a non-mandatory unpaid work experience placement, the Unpaid Work Experience form must be submitted at least 2 (two) days before commencement for approval to the EAIT Student Employability Team via employability@eait.uq.edu.au .The Fair Work Act restricts non-mandatory unpaid work experience to a maximum of 30 days per calendar year.

If you have a professional practice certificate (old scheme) signed off by your Supervisor, please submit it for approval via the EPP System in Category 14. More information on this process can be found on the 'How it works' page.

Professional practice hours are claimed via the EPP System against the relevant category as per the Engineering Professional Practice Activity Table. In this case, Type A Professional Practice Placements under the supervision of a qualified engineer must be claimed in Category 1. 

No, provided your report is approved and your milestone status is completed, there is nothing further you need to do. You have met the 60 days / 450-hour requirement.

To update your professional practice hours, you need to enter your already approved hours via the EPP System in Category 14 and convert your days to hours at a rate of 7.5 hours per day. The Faculty will then crosscheck your claim against your studies report. If you wish to claim your days at a higher rate than 7.5 hours per day then you will need to submit evidence of the additional hours. You must write and submit five (5) reflections and submit for marking.

The reflections require you to identify one or more learning events that you have encountered whilst undertaking your 450 hours of professional practice. A learning event could be learning that occurred over a short or long period. You do not need to discuss the entirety of your professional practice but you should outline the context in which your learning event occurred within your reflection. 

No, you can't submit your reflections at different times. You must submit all five (5) reflections together on the correct Assessment Reflections Template, which is available to download from the EPP System. Reflections submitted for marking without the correct template will receive a fail. It is a good idea to start writing your reflections as your experience and learning events are fresh in your mind.

If your report has been approved for fewer than 375 hours (50 days) then you will need to complete and submit the reflections via the EPP System. Please note that you will need to complete all five reflections (this is equivalent to the old style report of 1,500 words) If your report has been approved for 375 hours (50 days) or more, including at least 20 days working with or under the direction of a professional engineer, then you will not need to write further reflections. In either case, you will need to claim all of your hours via the EPP System. Previously approved days can be converted to hours by multiplying by 7.5 and claimed according to Category 14 in the Engineering Professional Practice Activity Table. (A multiplier other than 7.5 hours per day may be used if you have the evidence to support a different number of hours per day). Additional hours must be claimed in the EPP System against the relevant category.

The status 'External Confirmation' means that your claim is awaiting approval by your supervisor. Your supervisor may not have received the email for various reasons, such as tight firewall settings blocking the email, appearing in the junk mail folder or simply inputting an incorrect email address. Therefore, it is important that if your claim has not been processed in a timely manner that you phone your supervisor to follow up. You may need to ask them for an alternative email address. Get in touch with the EAIT Employability Team if you continue to have issues.

Professional Practice hours are broken down into Type A and Type B hours. Type A is the mandatory hours (minimum of 225 hours) which are carried out by assisting or under the immediate supervision of a professional engineer. Type B is made up of a range of allowable professional practice activities that can be claimed to meet the total 450-hour requirement.

Engineering students may be able to claim hours for participation in the UQ Summer and Winter Research Program towards their Professional Practice requirement. See category 18 for more information. If you can demonstrate that your project has a clear link with industry and you completed the project under the direction of a supervisor with an engineering qualification, you may be eligible to claim your hours as type A hours. Each type A hours claim will be assessed on a case by case basis by the Deputy Associate Dean (Student Experience). If your project did not have an industry linkage aspect or you were not under the direction of a supervisor with an engineering qualification, you can claim type B hours. Summer and Winter Research projects can be claimed under category 18 via the EPP system.

If you are travelling more than 50km from your usual place of residence for your placement, that involves an overnight stay, you must complete the EAIT Travel Approval Form. This form must be submitted and approved in order to be covered under UQ’s Travel Insurance. This form must be submitted a minimum of two weeks prior to your departure.

It is important that your EPP template includes a practice summary on page 2 of the document. This is something that academic staff will look for when grading your submission. If this is not pulling through correctly in the template you download, please try downloading the document on a Windows device and trial using different web browsers. If you continue to have issues, you can also open the template in Google Docs or WordPad. If you continue to have technical issues, please get in touch with the EAIT Student Employability Team for assistance.

If you are undertaking your professional practice placement remotely, UQ would like to ensure that this is an effective and enriching learning experience to assist in gaining the skills and experiences you require for the professional workplace once you graduate. The Faculty will approve remote work-integrated learning placements if the following requirements are met:

• Organisations must provide students with an adequate level of supervision – this being a minimum of three touchpoints per week when working full time, or equivalent to part-time work. This could include online video calls or phone discussions, however, the appropriate guidance and direction is required. Email communication does not qualify as one of these touchpoints.
• Supervisors are required to have appropriate work or project planning systems in place which allow for effective online collaboration, inclusion and learning.
• Students must be able to ensure they are in an environment that is safe and conducive for work and are required to review and comply with the UQ Guidelines and Confirmation for Working from Home document.

It is your responsibility to do the appropriate investigation prior to commencing your placement to ensure that any remote working integrated learning placements meet the above requirements. If you will be claiming your hours for your engineering professional practice milestone, the Employability Team will be auditing remote working placements to ensure compliance, and if a placement does not meet these requirements, it will be rejected.

If you have questions related to these requirements, please contact the EAIT Student Employability Team.

If you are interested in undertaking a virtual internship to assist in building your experience for your engineering professional practice milestone, UQ offers some options for students. It is important to note, however, that you MUST check the suitability of the placement prior to the commencement of your internship. You should consult with the EAIT Employability Team prior to submitting an application for a virtual internship.

The following virtual internship experiences are pre-approved to count towards EPP.

Virtual Internships

NEXTEP: https://employability.uq.edu.au/funded-global-virtual-internships-part-time

Pagoda Projects: https://employability.uq.edu.au/funded-global-virtual-internships-part-time

To determine whether your experience is eligible to claim against the Engineering Professional Practice milestone, please review the Engineering Professional Practice Activity Table and provide the EAIT Employability Team with the following information so the appropriate approvals can be sought prior to the commencement of your placement.

• Which organisation are you undertaking your virtual internship with? (NB: this is not the virtual internship provider, but the actual organisation that you will be working with.)
• What scope of work are you undertaking as a part of your internship?
• What type of hours are you hoping to claim (i.e. type A or B) and under which category (refer to the Engineering Professional Practice Activity Table for more details)?
• Who are you being supervised by and, if claiming type A hours, what qualifications do they hold?
• How many hours are you hoping to claim if you complete the virtual internship?

19. What is classified as an Industry Thesis Project and/or coursework Placement (category 17)? 

What is an industry thesis project?

Chen is undertaking their final year thesis to satisfy the requirements of their degree. Chen has identified a project with Brisbane Utilities and has a contact at Brisbane Utilities that has agreed to provide supervision throughout Chen’s thesis. Chen has submitted the thesis project to their School and has received approval and has identified a School-based academic supervisor. Chen will be able to provide evidence of fortnightly person-to-person meetings with the industry partner throughout their thesis to submit the Industry Thesis Logbook along with their Engineering Professional Practice claim. Chen can claim their thesis under category 17 of the EPP Activity Table.

What is not an industry thesis project?

Chen is undertaking their final year thesis to satisfy the requirements of their degree. Chen has identified a project through the EAIT Thesis Database that has been submitted by a UQ based academic. The UQ academic has received a grant through the Australian Research Council to undertake research related to the thesis project. The UQ academic has some contact with industry through the research grant, however, Chen does not have direct contact with industry throughout their project. As Chen does not have direct contact with industry, they will be unable to show evidence of industry engagement for the Industry Thesis Logbook. Chen cannot claim their thesis under category 17 of the EPP Activity Table.

If you have questions as to whether your thesis is eligible to claim under category 17, please email the Deputy Associate Dean Academic via employability@eait.uq.edu.au, with a description of your thesis topic including an outline of who the industry partner is and your engagement with them throughout the project.

Please provide the above information to the EAIT Student Employability Team for review prior to the commencement of your thesis.

20. I have evidence of professional practice in a language other than English. Can I submit this to support my EPP claim?

Students submitting official documentation in a language other than English to support an EPP claim in any category - need to submit the original document AND the English translated version (exact translation, not an extract). The translated document needs to be translated by a registered NAATI qualified translator and the translated version needs to have the NAATI stamp imprinted on the translated document. You can find a NAATI qualified translator here.