Vocational schools in Taiwan have long sought to broaden their programs by setting up restaurants, hotels and cafes on campus grounds to allow their students to intern and learn by doing. Now some liberal arts universities are following suit.
Fu Jen Catholic University in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊), renowned for fostering many of the nation’s fashion and clothing gurus, has established a student-run clothing store on campus.
According to intern store manager Ouyang Chia (歐陽嘉), a third-year student in the university’s Department of Textiles and Clothing, the school has given students great freedom in deciding what is sold and how it is presented.
Photo: Kuo Yen-hui, courtesy of Fu Jen Catholic University
The clothes are NT$50 less expensive than items in regular stores, Ouyang said, adding that students make seasonal changes to the shop’s offerings.
Ouyang said she thought that running a shop would be easy before her internship, but after taking charge, she realized there are many details that demand attention.
For example, when displaying clothes, Ouyang said putting items with brighter color schemes on top better attracts customers’ attention.
Photo: Kuo Yen-hui, Taipei Times
Beyond allowing students to gain experience operating a store, the program allows students to rent space in the store at NT$20 per day to exhibit and sell their own products, Ouyang said, adding that there was no limitation on what could be put up for sale.
Many students have used this opportunity to sell their own products and earn some cash on the side, as well as gaining work experience, Ouyang said.
Another intern store open to students a restaurant and cafe for Fu Jen’s Department of Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management, which leaves everything from the design of the menu to the food and its presentation in the hands of students, while teachers assist on the side.
Photo: Kuo Yen-hui, Taipei Times
The department also runs a hotel for guests who are visiting the university. The hotel is not open to the general public.
Students interning at the hotel handle the reception, cleaning and management of the rooms.
Due to constant visits by foreign guests of the College of Foreign Languages, hotel staff members are constantly exposed to foreigners, providing yet another challenge.
Students in the department also learn how to roast coffee beans and make coffee for the university’s various establishments that sell coffee products.
However, the university’s best-known intern store is the food science department’s ice cream shop, which offers “100 percent natural” confections without any additives or food coloring.
Vanilla and chocolate are the only flavors usually available, but the shop promotes special flavors during the school’s anniversary each year.
It sells more than 800 cones in the summer season and sometimes sees less than 100 cones sold in winter, with the best record being 4,000 cones sold during one of the school’s anniversary celebration events.
Fu Jen said it has recently begun promoting boxed ice cream and is seeking partnerships with off-campus stores to further its brand.
Student Liu Chien-yu (劉千瑜), who interned as the shop’s deputy manager last year, said she left the job knowing how to manage a store.
The most difficult thing she had done during her time as an intern at the store was to come up with special flavors for the school’s anniversary.
The two flavors of ice cream that were such a sensation at the 2013 university anniversary celebrations — rose salt red tea latte flavor and lemon dragon fruit — were the product of two or three months of hard work and the students working at the store were proud of themselves at the results of the sales, she said.
READY: The CGA said it closely monitored China’s maritime exercise, deployed vessels to shadow the Chinese ships one-on-one and set up emergency response centers Chinese navy and coast guard ships have returned to China, signaling the end of a massive maritime exercise, authorities said yesterday. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) released images it said showed Chinese vessels sailing north in rough seas past Taiwan on Thursday, on their way to China. “All the Chinese coast guard went back to China yesterday, so although they have not officially made any announcement, we consider it over,” CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said. Beijing has not confirmed the drills and the Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not say whether the maneuvers had taken place when asked at a
PUBLIC TRANSPORT: As some roads would be fully or partially closed, people are advised to take the MRT, with services expanded to accommodate more riders This year’s Taipei Marathon, which has obtained its first gold label certification from World Athletics, is to be held from 5am to 1pm tomorrow and would have 28,000 participants. The race is to start from the Taipei City Plaza and would go through major roads throughout the city, with traffic control implemented from 6am to 2pm, officials said. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system and New Taipei City MRT Circle line would start operating at 5am on the day of the race, they said. The race would cover Renai Road, Xinyi Road, Hangzhou S Road, Aiguo east and west roads,
People can take the Taipei MRT free of charge if they access it at Nanjing Sanmin Station or Taipei Arena Station on the Green Line between 12am and 6am on Jan. 1, the Taipei Department of Transportation said on Friday, outlining its plans to ease crowding during New Year’s events in the capital. More than 200,000 people are expected to attend New Year’s Eve events in Taipei, with singer A-mei (張惠妹) performing at the Taipei Dome and the city government’s New Year’s Eve party at Taipei City Hall Plaza, the department said. As people have tended to use the MRT’s Blue or
Upon its completion next year, the new Tamkang Bridge (淡江大橋) in New Taipei City is to be an important landmark in Taiwan, alongside Taipei 101, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) said today. The bridge is scheduled to be completed in December next year and open to the public in the first half of 2026, connecting New Taipei City’s Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里) districts. It is an asymmetric single-tower suspension bridge, nearly 70 stories tall, designed by world-famous architect Zaha Hadid. The bridge aims to alleviate traffic in Tamsui and on the Guandu Bridge (關渡大橋), in addition to increasing the
RSS