The post-graduate world opens a completely new arena of possibilities and potentialities where the academic student sometimes feels that the lack of experience does not give them the right frame into where to begin.
In many cases, graduates leave their academic world and find that whilst employers might ask for multi-competent graduates, some aspects of employment-related capability can only be developed in the employment context. They then seem to feel trapped inside a vicious circle where they find that many employers will only contact them if they have some experience. Because of this, exposing the students to some work placements of various kinds during a higher education program may however make a significant contribution in the graduate CV (Yorke, 2006).
Unfortunately, academic qualifications in higher education do not necessarily favour students into shaping their employment outcomes and the working world is perceived by the student to be a congested and competitive graduate labour market. While academic credentials are still seen as a significant dimension of their employability, students increasingly see the need to add value to them in order to gain an advantage in the labour market (Tomlinson, 2008). With this uncertain landscape, universities worldwide have begun to create Internship Programmes for their students were, either curricular or extracurricular, this wisely spent time outside the classrooms creates the perfect platform for them to gain new skills and mature in a more integral way.
Responsibility comes with the internship, and as such, education cannot just be training but must itself be a developmental process which takes into account not only social and political realities but also the complex psychodynamics involved in learning(Adorno and Becker, 1999). Students may become extremely familiar with the term deadline for a paper or an exam day, but the reality in working atmospheres is that responsibility is the bastion for them to prove that they are worth the position in such a fierce work searching world. Internships are the ideal middle point when students reach their last years of high education and at MIUC we have developed the Programme for it.
High education institutions seek links with businesses in order to give students a work-related experience, but this not only benefits the student, but the businesses too as they have access to a higher calibre of potential staff, networking and, one of the most searched elements by the companies, new ideas (Athena Piterou, 2016). Our Internship Programme provides with part-time internships during the studying period in local businesses in Marbella, and we also help them apply to international positions during the summer break or holidays so that our students can start developing their CV’s for when they graduate. At MIUC we believe that an integral education embraces the student and future employee or entrepreneur into a much confident position in order to apply or begin their new working role after high education.
Adorno, T.W. and Becker, H. (1999) ‘Education for Maturity and Responsibility’. History of the Human Sciences, 12(3), pp. 21–34. DOI: 10.1177/09526959922120324.
Athena Piterou, C.B. (2016) ‘The Role of Higher Education Institutions in Supporting Innovation in SMEs: University-Based Incubators and Student Internships as Knowledge Transfer Tools’. InImpact: The Journal of Innovation Impact, 7(1), p. 72.
Tomlinson, M. (2008) ‘“The Degree Is Not Enough”: Students’ Perceptions of the Role of Higher Education Credentials for Graduate Work and Employability’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(1), pp. 49–61. DOI: 10.1080/01425690701737457.
Yorke, M. (2006) Employability in Higher Education: What It Is, What It Is Not
