Identification of Crucial Pre-Internship Skills A Case Study of Internship Program Involving University Students Majoring in Japanese Language

Abstract

Compared to those in previous generations, different sets of manpower skills are being sought after by today’s labor market. Academic excellence alone can no longer guarantee success. Recognizing such dynamism, the Japanese Section of ‘A’ University, therefore, initiated an internship program to help students develop life skills and career competencies and, through a certain set of organized activities, to prepare them for the internship per se. In a bid to propose suggested pre-internship student preparation guidelines to the Japanese Section, this study seeks to identify, from an entrepreneurial/corporate perspective, key threats and skills that need to be cultivated by students prior to their embarking on the internship; a survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews were employed as its research tools. The results revealed that the key threats and skills identified from an entrepreneurial/corporate perspective are: 1) eagerness to learn; 2) sense of responsibility; 3) mannerliness; 4) discipline and compliance to organizational rules; 5) work efficiency; 6) communication skills; and 7) teamwork spirit. Moreover, having employed the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) framework to analyze students’ internship performance, the study identified the following skills that should stay on top at the Japanese Section’s skill development agenda:1) work efficiency; 2) precision and accuracy; 3) language proficiency; and 4) comprehension ability towards issue at hand. The Japanese Section’s skill development activities should be divided into three categories: (a) compulsory; (b) compulsory elective; and (c) free elective. Threats and skills that are deemed crucial from the entrepreneurial/corporate perspective and are yet to be acquired by students should be developed through compulsory and compulsory elective activities, whereas compulsory elective and free elective activities should be used as a way to nurture career skills and to include students in a decision-making process that determines skill items to be added to the skill development agenda. Such an approach is expected not only to help the Japanese Section align students’ skills in accordance with corporate requirements, but also to allow students to acquire a set of skills that meets their own expectations.