McGill University staff cannot complete, sign, or review any other document (including the French convention de stage documents, third-party contracts or documents, and visa applications) other than the Declaration relative à la participation d'un étudiant à une activité étudiante. There is absolutely no negotiating around this fact, as it is a legal matter that cannot be circumvented by the Field Studies and Internship Office (FSIO) nor any other unit at the University. The Declaration is an internship agreement between the intern, McGill, and the host organization. The document must be completed and signed before the start of the internship, and its text cannot be modified by any of the signing parties.
Important Note - Please read carefully
The university is scheduled to review the Declaration very soon. This is because of legal concerns regarding the types of opportunities that the university can reasonably approve given Quebec's laws on the responsibility of universities to students participating in university-sanctioned internships. As such, the current version of the Declaration provided and the procedure outlined on this webpage are subject to change within a short time frame and with very little notice. FSIO cannot control such changes, as they will be university-mandated. As such, opportunities that you may have pursued previously through the Declaration may soon have different stipulations of participation or may not be approved at all in the near future.
Eligibility
To be eligible to request the Declaration from FSIO, the student, without any exceptions, must be:
- In the Faculty of Science (i.e., in a BSc or BA & Sc degree program),
- Registered full-time at McGill at the time of the request,
- Minimum of 12 credits remaining in the degree program at McGill after the internship has ended.
The internship must also meet the following requirements:
- Involve tasks that are deemed reasonably safe and low-risk by FSIO.
- Cannot take place in a country coded as level orange/level 3 (avoid non-essential travel) or level red/level 4 (avoid all travel) by the Government of Canada's travel advisory scale.
NOTE: We cannot provide the Declaration for internships that are already in progress or that have already been completed.
How to request the Declaration
You must send your request for the Declaration a minimum of 4 weeks before the internship start date. These are the steps to request the document:
- Complete the Declaration Information Form here. If you do not receive a response from FSIO within 5 business days of your form submission, ifso.science [at] mcgill.ca (email the office) directly.
- If FSIO emails you to confirm that the internship is appropriate for the Declaration,
download the Declaration here in French or here in English to complete and sign it with your employer. - Complete the McGill Travel Registry (read more about this below).
- Complete the McGill Pre-Departure Orientation (read more about this below).
- Send the following to FSIO:
- The completed and signed Declaration
- Screenshots of your Travel Registry entry (the images must show the details of your entry)
- Certificate of Completion for the Pre-Departure Orientation (if it was required).
FSIO will then request the Dean's signature on the Declaration and will send you the signed version.
McGill Travel Registry
All students must register university-approved activities taking place outside of the Greater Montreal Area in the Travel Registry.
When creating your entry in the registry, write Science Field Studies and Intership Office as the Application Reviewer and ifso.science [at] mcgill.ca as the Application Reviewer Email Address. Fill in your company/organization's information for all Host Institution information.
You will not receive the Declaration signed by the Dean until you complete the registry.
McGill Pre-Departure Orientation
If you are not a legal resident/citizen of the country in which the internship takes place, you must complete the Pre-Departure Orientation.
Registration for the Pre-Departure Orientation only opens in the first week of each month, and the Certificate of Completion must be completed before the end of the month or it will disappear (see the specific dates on the webpage hyperlinked above).
You will not receive the Declaration signed by the Dean until you have sent your Certificate of Completion to ifso.science [at] mcgill.ca (unless you are a permanent resident/citizen of the country in which the internship takes place).
How Declaration-approved internships are recorded
Internships approved through the Declaration process do not appear on the academic transcript since they are not part of your academic program. As such, these internships are added to the Student Experience Record (accessible on myFuture) as co-curricular activities.