Are You Truly Prepared? A Review and Policy Suggestions for University of Technology Students Off-Campus Internships



Author Information

Jen-Chia Chang, National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan
Hsuan-Chieh Feng, National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan

Abstract

The integration of theory and practice in off-campus internships aimed to enhance students’ professional competence and employability. However, pitfalls were identified in the implementation, such as unclear internship content, students’ insufficient understanding of the internship site, and perfunctory pre-internship briefings, all contributing to suboptimal internship results. Therefore, the primary objectives of this study are as follows: 1. To investigate the execution status of tasks that school units needed to undertake before off-campus internships. 2. To explore system implementation, identify deficiencies, and propose specific policy recommendations. The study employed an online questionnaire survey, assessing interns from university sophomores to seniors in 2023, with a total of 1,026 valid responses. Data analysis was conducted using the SPSS statistical software. The results indicated that interns scored lowest in understanding the “organizational and departmental conditions within a company,” “industry conditions,” and “participation in pre-internship briefings,” suggesting insufficient pre-internship briefing implementation by the school and a lack of student understanding of industry conditions and internship institutions. To address these issues, the study proposed the following recommendations: 1. Establish clear “Technical and Vocational College Student Off-Campus Internship Regulations,” emphasizing mandatory attendance at pre-internship briefings to ensure students understand the industry. 2. Create a “Student Off-Campus Internship Self-Assessment Form” to strengthen collaboration between schools and internships through self-assessment, facilitating a smooth transition from internship to employment and achieving the teaching goals of technical and vocational college student off-campus internships.


Paper Information

Conference: ACSS2024
Stream: Education and Social Welfare

This paper is part of the ACSS2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Chang J., & Feng H. (2024) Are You Truly Prepared? A Review and Policy Suggestions for University of Technology Students Off-Campus Internships ISSN: 2186-2303 – The Asian Conference on the Social Sciences 2024: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 213-226) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-2303.2024.18
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-2303.2024.18


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