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 over 500 hours of pre-professional field work hours prior to beginning their internship. Students with significant field experience often secure quality internships more quickly than students with less recreation experience.

• Contact Hours Recording Form (.docx)

• Contact Hours Recording Form (.pdf)

Guidelines for accumulating contact hours:

1. Students may begin accumulating contact hours upon declaration of the Recreation Administration major.
2. Contact hours must involve the delivery of recreation and leisure services. Students must have contact hours from a minimum of three (3) recreation agencies.
3. 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.
4. It is strongly recommended students perform a portion of contact hours with special populations (i.e. senior citizens, people with mental or physical disabilities).
5. 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.
6. Students are responsible for keeping a signed copy of all of their contact hour sheets.
7. Students may turn in a copy of their contact hours to the Recreation Administration program office staff for inclusion in their student file. Students must accept responsibility for their contact hour forms and realize that if their sheets get filed incorrectly or become misplaced that it is the student's responsibility to contact the agency supervisor to get new signatures and verification of their hours.