In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions

In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions In search for effective interships of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions

In real life, "career" is always an important factor in social life For each socialcommunity, the structure along with the change in occupational structure reflectsthe level of development of that social community in each historical period On asmaller scale, for each individual, his profession is a reflection of his or herposition, role and prestige in the community For us - the final year students arepreparing to enter the labor market, the career is a measure of the value, ability,knowledge and effort of individual students

However, there are a number of studies done in different places that haveshown and concluded that there is a very big gap between the quality of graduatesand the demand of the job market nowadays For this reason, the internship program

is created to help students get closer to the job market, bridging the gap betweenstudying at school and real work in enterprises With the intention of helping finalyear students familiarize themselves with the workplace environment, with the jobdescription of different positions, the internship programs are now being developed

to become more and more professional

In spite of these positive intentions, the interns faced many differentchallenges when taking part in a internship programme Understanding thisproblem, researching on the challenges that the final year students of VietnamUniversity of Commerce may face during their internship will help them to preparebetter and solve all the problems to have a more effective internship

i

First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge my thankfulness to mysupervisor Mr Nguyen Khac Nghia who helped, supported and encouraged meenthusiastically in all stages of the research Without his inspiration, motivation andinstructions, the study would have been impossible to be done effectively I am verygrateful for being adviced and supported as his student

Beside, I would also like to express my sincere gratitude and gratefulness toall teachers at English Department of Thuong Mai University for giving mepermission to commence this thesis and spending their time answering my interviewquestions to help me in my data collection

Moreover, I would like to state my special thanks to 60 senior students atThuong Mai University They helped me to collect and summarize the data to giveresearch findings

Especially, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family and all

of my best friends for their continuous support They are always my motivation thathelp me overcome all difficulties and challenges during this study

Once again, sincerely thanks all of you!

Hanoi, 16th April 2021.

Student

Nguyen Ai Van

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATION v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Research Subjects 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Research methodology 3

1.6 Organization of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Previous studies 4

2.2 Presenting theories related to the study 5

2.2.1 Senior student 5

2.2.2 Internships: 6

2.2.3 Effective internships 6

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH FINDINGS 7

3.1 Methodology 7

3.1.1 Method of using questionnaire 7

3.1.2 Method of interviewing 7

3.1.3 Method of group discussion 8

3.2 Findings and discussions 8

3.2.1 Lack of specialized knowledges 14

3.2.2 Lack of soft skill 15

3.2.3 The working environment is different from the university environment 15

3.2.4 Time pressure 16

3.2.5 Working pressure 17

iii

3.2.6 Competition between colleagues and other trainees 18

3.2.7 Lack of support from direct supervisors and internship agents 19

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 21

4.1 For Unuversity 21

4.2 For Senior students 21

4.3 For Internship agencies 21

CONCLUSION 22 REFERENCES

APPENDICES

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

TMU: Thuongmai University

IT: Information and Technology

HR: Human Resources

Gov: Government

JD: Job Description

v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1: Reality of joining an internship programme of final year students of

Thuongmai University 8

Figure 3.1: The rate of completion of the internship program 10

Figure 3.2: The variety of internships field that the senior students of TMU applying 10

Figure 3.3: The relatedness between the field of internship programs and the majors of the senior TMU students 11

Table 3.2: Evaluate your own performance during the internships 12

Table 3.3: Evaluate the training quality that the internship agent gives you 13

Figure 3.4: Did you have any difficulty during your internship? 13

Figure 3.5: The level of impact of the lack of specialized knowledges on the effectiveness of the internship program 14

Figure 3.6: The level of impact of the lack of soft skills on the effectiveness of the internship program 15

Figure 3.7: The level of impact of the differences between working environment and university environment on the effectiveness of the internship program 16

Figure 3.8: The level of impact of time pressure on the effectiveness of the internship program 17

Figure 3.9: The level of impact of work pressure on the effectiveness of the internship program 17

Figure 3.10: The level of impact of Competition between colleagues and other trainees on the effectiveness of the internship program 18

Figure 3.11 The level of impact of Competition between colleagues and other trainees on the effectiveness of the internship program 19

Figure 3.12 All of the difficulties the senior students in TMU encounter during your internship 20

vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale

Vietnam is a country with its own socio-economic characteristics, which is in

a period of brilliant development and constantly changing Therefore, the issue of

"career" becomes more and more important than ever in today's society The issue

of training high-quality human resources to serve the needs of socio-economicdevelopment of Vietnam, especially in the period of promoting industrialization andmodernization in recent years is an inevitable need The internship program wascreated to meet that need For scientific researchers, up to now, this has always been

a large research field, with many issues, many aspects to exploit, and mostimportantly, of practical significance, serving for social development purposes Infact, there are many scientists who have been interested in studying “internship”problems at different levels of scale

One common common point in all the researchs on internship problems is theresearch object The studies are aimed at young workers, who are still in the period

of accumulating skills, knowledge and experience to step by step enter the labormarket The current global integration period of Vietnam has created manyopportunities as well as challenges for workers, especially the group of youngworkers mentioned above Facing these challenges, the orientation and training forthis target group, especially final year students, is of great significance, both interms of theory and practice For that reason, the study seeks to identify the directchallenges accruing to the interns as well as actions to remedy the situation forfuture improvement The study also focuses on impediments affecting the smoothflow of the internship process as well as the field process I hope that my researchwill help the senior Thuong Mai university become more aware and well- preparedfor their internship At the same time, research can help the School board of TMU

to come up with appropriate policies and support to meet the needs of solving theproblems of students during internship programme as well as equipping the skillsand knowledge for them In addition, the research is expected to help businessesshorten the time, money and effort to train professional skills for the young workers

Talking about the research objects - the final year students of Thuong MaiUniversity, this is a specific group that the relationship between training objectivesand career orientation in the labor market can be easily seen Graduates of TMUhave a relatively broad career goal and ability to participate in a variety of fields,but do not have expertise in any field In addition, in the current social integrationperiod, all of the businesses increasingly raise the requirements for new graduates,causing many challenges for them when applying for a good internship program orapply for job This raises an urgent issue regarding the realization of the challenges

as well as the importance of the internship for a large number of graduated TMUstudents Besides, the selection of final year students is the most optimal researchobject because this is a group that has undergone a training process and has had acareer exploration in a certain period of time

As a student studying at the Vietnam University of Commerce, I have manyadvantages in the process of implementing this research, especially in the process ofcollecting actual data In addition, I conduct this research to express my desire tocontribute to the construction and development of the University through the actualsurvey data of the research topic on an issue that the University and the studentsstudying here are also very concerned about Thus, my own learning and researchprocess, along with the research from the theoretical basis as well as the practical

basis, I have come to choose a research problem: “In search for effective interships

of senior Thuongmai students: challenges and solutions ” as my research topic.

1.2 Aims of the study

Identify, explore, evaluate, and compare all of the challenges that all the seniorstudents of TMU may faced during their internship period; thereby proposingresearch directions and practical recommendations for management levels ofVietnam University of Commerce and the students themselves

1.3 Research Subjects

The challenges and solitions for effective internships of senior Thuongmaistudents

1.4 Scope of the study

- Research space: Thuong Mai University

- Research implementation time: From 22nd February 2021 to 16th April2021

- Proposing practical solutions for the management levels of the University

of Commerce and the final-year students of the University of Commerce oninternship programs

1.6 Organization of the study

The research is presented with the structure of sections: Abstract,Acknowlegement, Table of contents, List of abbreviation, List of tables and figures,Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Conclusion, References andAppendices

Chapter 1: Overview of the study

- Chapter 1 provides an overview of research issues, including the sections:Rationale, Aims of the study, Research subjects, Scope of the study, Researchmethodology, Organization of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review

- Chapter 2 mentions the research situation and synthesizes theories ofconcepts such as: internships, effective internships, senior students

Chapter 3: Methodology and research findings

- Chapter 3 provides research methods applied in the study, analyzes andgives results of online surveys on the perception of final year students ofThuongmai University about challenges and solutions for an highly effectiveinternships

Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions

- Chapter 4 provides solutions and recommendations for the TMU and theTMU students themselves to address and solve all the challenges they face duringinternship period

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous studies

Some studies have shown that internship programs really affect the joborientation and future jobs for students who are about to graduate According to afew small surveys, it shows that 38.3% of students choose to practice in fields thatare not in the right major or not related to their major, but 76.7% of studentscontinue to pursuing the job that they are doing in their internship period Thus, itcan be seen that the internship program has an effect on the students' perception andfuture career development orientation

According to other researchs on internships, benefits include learning aboutbusiness life, gaining experience, and developing problem solving skills(Abeysekera, 2006; Chang & Chu, 2009; Barr & Busler, 2011) Internships providetrainees with their first hands-on experience in the work place Internship activitiesprovide on-the-job training, help senior students mature, provide the market withmanpower, and allow an individual to gain expertise (Busby & Gibson, 2010).Busby and Gibson (2010) and Ross and Elechi (2002) identify the benefits ofinternship activities as:

- Learning to complete tasks, engage in proper conduct, take responsibility,and manage others

- Gaining experience in management and management methods

- Developing maturity and self-esteem

- Recognizing problems and determining solution standards

- Offering opportunities and career choices for the future

- With all the efforts spent to train new manpower, businesses gainemployees with substantial previous experience

In spite of the importance of internships, studies about internships areinsufficient Identifying the problems that undergraduate students experience duringtheir internships is a necessary first step to solving such problems and will help tomaximize the contribution an internship can have to a university education

Currently, there are not many studies showing the challenges that seniorstudents may face during their internships This leads to misconceptions about jobchoices, confusion when facing these problems Since then, students are susceptible

to being underestimated by businesses This will cause them to lose jobopportunities, be confused about their own abilities and values, and becomeambiguous about the direction of their future work, which seriously affects jobdecisions after that Whether positive or negative, the images acquired during thisperiod will affect future years spent in the profession Trainees' negativeexperiences during an internship will thus undermine their plans If these problemsare identified and the findings shared with the businesses’ representatives, thenstudents’ internship problems can be lessened

Hopefully this new research topic can help senior students of ThuongmaiUniversity somewhat to have a really quality internship, help them to be moreconfident about their own values and make wise decisions about your future careerdevelopment goals

2.2 Presenting theories related to the study

2.2.1 Senior student

- A student is primarily a person enrolled in a school or other educationalinstitution and who is under learning with goals of acquiring knowledge, developingprofessions and achieving employment at desired field In the broader sense, astudent is anyone who applies themselves to the intensive intellectual engagementwith some matter necessary to master it as part of some practical affair in whichsuch mastery is basic or decisive

- Senior is a student in the last (usually fourth) year of college, university, orhigh school

This is a group of objects that are having great turning points in their academicand career life They are the people who really need care, help and support from allthose around them

2.2.2 Internships:

An internship is defined as an activity in which one practices training related

to a profession or skill and gains experience According to Titley (1984), aninternship encapsulates these features:

- It is a learning experience that deals with the reality of professionalpractice

- It follows other theoretical and practical aspects of preparation

- It is normally a terminal experience - the last stage before the granting offull professional status

- It is an experience that is subject to evaluation by qualified practitioners

- Though under supervision, the internship must also entail full-fledgeddecision making and its concomitant professional responsibility

Internships are an important activity for potential employees, enabling interns

to prepare for future jobs while they are in school

2.2.3 Effective internships

“An effective internship will provide us the knowledge and skills required tobecome successful in a specific career field The most amazing internshipexperiences are those that prepare students for the work they hope to do aftergraduating from college Employers seek employees who have the experiencerequired to start out in a new field

Employers also welcome new employees who have already had exposure tothe field and understand the type of work they will be doing once they are hired.Employers spend a great deal of time and money on training their new employees,and they know that they can eliminate a lot of this time by hiring someone withprevious knowledge and experience.” (The balance careers)

As Marketing agency insider, there are 5 elements of an effective internships:

- Secure top quality candidates

- Clearly Define the Program Including Roles and Responsibilities

- Offer Enough Time to Learn and Contribute

- Implement Performance Checkpoints

- Create a Fun, Exciting and Rewarding Environment

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH FINDINGS

3.1 Methodology

3.1.1 Method of using questionnaire

In order to collect parameters for the research, our team has collectedquantitative information through questionnaires with a sample size of 60 samplesfrom the final year students of the Vietnam University of Commerce The groupapplied the method of sampling in the survey using questionnaires, based on thepractical conditions of the research area that the university training unit is dividedinto different administrative classes in the University The survey is designed inVietnamese to gain the thorough feeling and though all of the students Next, whenconsidering the factors of sex ratio, academic performance, I choose the randomstratified sampling method Such sampling method allows to create fairlyhomogeneous groups (small variance) and the sample selection from there helps tolimit the sampling error This sampling method also allows the researcher to selectthe number of research units needed for the statistical calculations to be meaningful,

in addition, the groups divided here are large and uniform The questions in thequestionnaire are organized according to principles from easy to difficult questions,starting with questions that require less effort to think to more complex questions,and from general to specific

3.1.2 Method of interviewing

In-depth interview is a method of asking questions to the interlocutor to collectinformation about what the interviewees do, think or feel The interviewing method

is applied when it is necessary to find out complex issues, hypersensitivity, or when

it is necessary to avoid social pressure because it allows the researcher to "control"according to the question circuit and collect the information about historical ornews In order to get more in-depth information combined with quantitative resultsfrom the questionnaire survey method, I conducted an in-depth interview conductedwith 10 final-year students who were randomly selected from different classes Theinterview is conducted with the criteria of confidentiality, both sides freely andnaturally share their views, helping the author to collect the most authentic andrelevant answers

3.1.3 Method of group discussion

Group discussion is a way of collecting data through which selected membersdiscuss their reactions or feelings about a work, service, situation or concept underthe guidance of a facilitator or discussion guide Accordingly, I held a groupdiscussion with 08 students from 06 different classes of the Thuongmai University,thereby creating an environment for exchanging individual views with the contentaround the research topic that needed to find out

3.2 Findings and discussions

First of all, we need to have a more general view of the real situation ofparticipating in the internship programme of the final year students at TMU Thiswill be a practical basis and showing the logic before analyzing in depth all thechallenges they may face during their internship period which contribute to creatingthat situation To accomplish this goal, in the process of designing research contents

in questionnaires, in-depth interviews and discussion scenarios, I have activelyraised research issues related to self-assessment about the real situation of joiningthe internships, career selection criteria for the internship, career & careerinformation access channels and the relationship between the internship job and theprofession of the student being trained (their major in the university) The collectedqualitative and quantitative data cover most of the research issues we are concernedabout, depicting an overview of the real situation of the internships of the final yearstudents in all universities in general and in Thuongmai University in particular

Reality of joining an internship programme of final year

students of Thuongmai University

Percentage(%

)

- Actually participating in an internship program in a company 76,7

- Participates to apply for certificate of completion of the

internship program but stops before the internship program has

- Not really taking part in the internships, but just asking for

Table 3.1: Reality of joining an internship programme of final year students of

Thuongmai University

According to the survey results, up to 76.7% of the students surveyed actuallyparticipate in an internship program in a company However, still existence of 18%

of the final year students participated to apply for internship certificates but stoppedbefore the end of the internship program and 4.9% of the students did not actuallyparticipate in the internship program but just asking for Certificate of internshipprogram completion This is indeed not a small number Recognizing this problem,

we can see, still exists a large part of the final-year students in our university whoare not really aware of the importance of internships They simply see it as acompulsory subject to gain Bachelor degree They tend to rely on their ownrelationships to achieve their goals This is really a false perception that seriouslyaffects the future careers of the students

When being asked about the reason for the decision of not taking part inthorough internships, there are some answers such as:

“I find it unnecessary and time consuming to join internships If I can easily apply for the certificate of completion of the internship program, why I have to take part in it to get tired? I think it is not necessary at all ”

Student X, K53N

“I had the intention of participating in all the company's training programs, but actually the company did not offer any professional training program and did not really care about the trainee's development In addition, all the trainees like me are paid extremely low wages, the support fee for trainees is only 1 million VND I felt it wastes my time and effort, so I stopped when the training program was not over ”

Student Y, K53FFrom this fact we can clearly see a lack of awareness about the importance ofthe internship program from the students We still see some fact of unprofessionaltraining programme of some internship agencies

The next part of the research will go in depth and clarify all about theinternship program for final year students, thereby finding out the difficulties andchallenges they face along the way of their interships

Figure 3.1: The rate of completion of the internship program

81.7% of the surveyed students have completed their internship programs.This number is sufficient to draw exact conclusions about the survey results

An interesting little survey was conducted to find out which fields of businessthat the senior students of our university choose The figure below shows the variety

of careers that they apply for their internship programs

Figure 3.2: The variety of internships field that the senior students of TMU

applying

Overall, it is clear that TMU students have the ability to choose from anextremely diverse range of fields In fact, the Vietnam University of Commerceactually provides a full range of knowledge and skills of high applicability to itsstudents TMU students, through their studies at school, have been able toaccumulate not only professional knowledge but also soft skills that is necessary fortheir career development The fields that they choose can namely as: Sales /Marketing; Translating and interpreting; Logistics; Education; Avitation; IT;

Tourist hotel restaurant; Accounting and auditing; HR; Bank; Entertainment;Insurrance; Wholesale and retail; Health and beauty; Gov and non-profit non-governmental organizations and other professions.

More specifically, the sectors that are currently the most selected include:Sales / Marketing (21.7%); Education (18.3%), Logistic (15%), Translating andinterpreting (10%), Restaurants, hotels and tourism (8.3%) These are all topdisciplines of Thuongmai University

For this specific fields of economics as mentioned above, the difficulties andchallenges that the students face when doing internships in these fields are more orless different from the manual labor or professions related to engineering andtechnology

Figure 3.3: The relatedness between the field of internship programs and the

majors of the senior TMU students

Although all that fields are trained in TMU, but when digging deeper, up to38.3% of students do not choose an internship field related to their major Theinevitable consequence of this problem directly affects their internship program,which causes some certain difficulties that they will encounter

But another interesting figure of the survey shows that although not working

in the right major for which they are trained, up to 76.7% of the studentsparticipating in the survey still continue to pursue the current occupation after

internship program ends So why is this number? The answers given by the seniorstudents of TMU are as the following:

“I never thought that I would work in this field However, through my internships, I realized that I have the ability as well as a passion in this field I have really learned and developed a lot while working as a Sales interns”

A Sale interns

“I feel fortunate to have chosen indiscriminately the field of internship just because the JD for this job does not require any job experience After the internship, I found this career very potential and promising It will definitely be a top chosen career in the near future”

Evaluate your own performance during the internships Percentage(%