A study on off-campus practical learning affecting interns’ learning satisfaction, career planning, and employment competitiveness

It is common for many colleges and technological and vocational institutes of higher education to integrate internship into their curriculum design so that students can enter industry to experience real workplace environments during their studies in school, to train and reinforce their knowledge and skills of their chosen field, and finally achieve to demonstrate employment-ready competences after graduation. In the present research study, the main participants will consist of Asia University (AU) students having conducted off-campus internships. They will be surveyed with a questionnaire to measure their satisfaction towards their participation in an off-campus internship program. Furthermore, this research project will explore the correlations between students’ internship satisfaction and their future career planning. Differences in perceiving their employment competitiveness “before” and “after” internship will be identified as well. It is hoped that this research project will examine, based upon the research findings, students’ learning effectiveness of internship programs of AU employment counseling system, and their beneficial effects on students’ future career plan. All the collected information will contribute to the school’s understanding of current students’ employment preparation, needs, and feedbacks, and in turn help improve the issues.