Contact Hours Requirement
Pre-Internship 150 Contact Hours Requirement
Recreation Administration students are required to have professional field experience throughout their academic program. As a prerequisite for admission into the REC 490 Internship class, students are required to have completed 150 contact hours (150 clock hours of work in a recreation service setting).
These experiences may be voluntary or paid, but they must involve the delivery of recreation and leisure services. Each student must complete a minimum of 150 contact hours before they are given approval to begin their internship.
Although not required, students are encouraged to complete more pre-professional field work prior to beginning their internship. Students with significant field experience often secure quality internships more quickly than students with less recreation experience.
Guidelines for accumulating contact hours:
- Students may begin accumulating contact hours upon declaration of the Recreation Administration major.
- Contact hours must involve the delivery of recreation and leisure services. Students must have contact hours from a minimum of three (3) recreation agencies.
- Students must have a minimum of 50 contact hours from at least one agency. They may count no more than 100 contact hours from any single agency.
- The contact hours supervisor must be a regular employee of the organization (year-round full-time, seasonal full-time, or possibly year-round part-time). It is strongly encouraged that the agency supervisor has administrative and supervisory duties as part of their job.
- Students are responsible for keeping a signed copy of all of their contact hour sheets.
- Students will turn in their contact hour forms when applying for their internship. Students must accept responsibility for their contact hour forms and realize that if their sheets get misplaced that it is the student's responsibility to contact the agency supervisor to get new signatures and verification of their hours.