Brian Chiu (丘博元) echoes many university students when he says he’s frustrated by the lack of internships available.
“After sending out dozens of applications, only one company got back to me,” says the National Chiao-Tung University student. And that internship didn’t pan out.
Yvonne walked into a position at a tech company because of her father’s connections.
Photo: Taipei Times
As with students like her — with family connections — resumes are directly forwarded to human resources departments.
While informational interviews were set up for Yvonne, who didn’t want her full name revealed because it might compromise her father, she says that such a process is “just a formality.” Placements are almost always guaranteed with such referrals.
Another problem for these interns is that many of the positions are unpaid, leading to concerns that they are exploitative.
Photo courtesy of Google
Kiefer Huang (黃子羽) says it makes sense if companies with structured internship programs don’t pay their interns. Huang, who received an unpaid position at a multinational company over the summer, cited the resources needed to train interns as a hidden cost on the company’s side. Even though he did not get paid, he feels his internship experience was “worth it.”
But not everyone is privileged enough to work for free. Students like Chang Hsin-wen (張馨雯), for example, took a full-time unpaid internship while continuing to work part time. But she still felt the experience was worthwhile.
You first have to get your foot in the door, though.
For college students like Chiu internships can fundamentally shape the trajectory of their career paths. However, most universities provide inadequate resources to help students land such opportunities. And, as the example of Yvonne shows, competition for internships is hardly a level playing field. Oftentimes, such opportunities are exclusive to those who know the right person and those who need not worry about paying bills. Amid an economy weakened by the pandemic, students had to reckon with drastically different realities.
The Taipei Times interviewed 17 college students who attempted to seek internship opportunities this summer. Seven of them managed to secure an internship, while others were left without an offer by the start of their summer breaks.
Among the seven interviewees who interned this summer, all but one obtained their opportunities through family connections.
PRESSURE
When asked about their motivation to pursue internships, many cited their degree requirements. However, most found their school’s career center to be of little use.
“While many schools do provide pipelines to intern at certain companies, those opportunities are not particularly appealing to the students. There’s a mismatch between what students are interested in pursuing and what their schools offer,” says Claire Ke (柯友涵), a Radio & Television student at National Taiwan University of Arts who applied for three internships.
Ke received one offer, but had to decline it because it was for an entire year and could only devote time to a summer internship.
Instead, it is far more common for students to be left navigating the corporate world on their own, scavenging for the scarce openings scattered across job banks like 104 and 1111, Web sites like Blink and CakeResume and numerous private Facebook groups.
Peer pressure is also cited as a deciding factor: fear of lagging behind when students see that their peers have begun looking for internships.
The past decade has seen the emergence of the trend for college students to start looking for internship opportunities early, which can be as early as the summer before freshman year, as one of our interviewees reported. Internships have now become the new entry-level jobs. Compared to previous generations, the timeline for entering the job market has been significantly accelerated.
TRIVIAL TASKS
With very few internship opportunities openly advertised, competition for internships is fierce. It is not uncommon for acceptance rates to hover around single digits. This is consistent with the figures released last year by Line, with an acceptance rate of 0.3 percent, and Acer, one percent.
Yet even when students like Yvonne manage to secure internships, these opportunities do not necessarily guarantee an enriching experience. When the kids of the management’s friends come into the office, the managers often struggle to find jobs for them to do.
“I was often given trivial tasks or left with nothing to do,” Yvonne says. She added that even after asking for more work, she was ignored.
Yvonne’s experience reflects the peculiarity of internships in Taiwan. Not established to benefit the companies who take on interns, many opportunities are created in an ad-hoc fashion as a service to personal connections. These doors are never open to those without connections to the management. And even for those who are fortunate enough to get their foot in the door, oftentimes, such programs are not designed for personal growth.
Altogether, these practices continue to perpetuate the vicious cycle of the overemphasis on connections over merit.
Johnson Chou (周昱程), a Taiwanese student studying in China who applied for nine internships through 104, didn’t hear back from any of them.
“Climbing the corporate ladder is like scaling a mountain. You don’t get anywhere without putting in the effort,” he says. “However, without the right equipment, you are not even going to find the trailhead,” Chou said.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Mirror mirror on the wall, what’s the fairest Disney live-action remake of them all? Wait, mirror. Hold on a second. Maybe choosing from the likes of Alice in Wonderland (2010), Mulan (2020) and The Lion King (2019) isn’t such a good idea. Mirror, on second thought, what’s on Netflix? Even the most devoted fans would have to acknowledge that these have not been the most illustrious illustrations of Disney magic. At their best (Pete’s Dragon? Cinderella?) they breathe life into old classics that could use a little updating. At their worst, well, blue Will Smith. Given the rapacious rate of remakes in modern
RSS