College Junior - possible to find internship in taiwan?

Hi forumosans,
I’m a junior at a UC school studying communication, music, and technology management. I was looking into spending the summer in taiwan to spend time with family, travel some, and familiarize myself even more with the culture and language. However, it’s the summer going into my senior year of college, and I thought finding an internship would be valuable, even one abroad in Taiwan. My question/concern is, would it be likely or feasible to find a 3-month summer (hopefully paid?) internship in the field of marketing, social media, etc. in Taiwan…considering that I am:

  • Background/language skill: American born (ABC) native English speaker. Also speaks Mandarin, reads traditional Chinese at an intermediate level. Been to Taiwan many times, so I’m not a stranger
  • still a college student, so just looking for a 3-month internship, nothing longer. (Have to go back in time for school)

…Or should I just stick to the regular internship in California? I don’t have much experience with the working life in taiwan, so would appreciate any suggestions. Also not quite sure where I’d start looking for such an internship. Thanks for your time!

I would assume most UC schools would have connections in Taiwan for internships. Have you looked through your schools internship and job listing?

And yes it’s very possible, most likely they probably will be unpaid or very low in salary. For skills, unless you plan to live and work in Taiwan, an internship in Taiwan mostly will just look good for resumes but not much skill development. But it would depend on the company, I speak from generalizations.

Yeah I have asked my school, they don’t really have any as they’ve had little or no experience with any students interning in taiwan. Only thing they could do was direct me to search online by finding individual companies on my own and contacting them.
Skill development vs. resume? In my mind, they went hand in hand, as long as I’m doing something new in my internship that I haven’t before. So I guess I’m not really setting my sights too high, but maybe I should…
Thanks for the advice!

If at least one of one of your parents is an ROC citizen, then check out the Taiwan Tech Trek program, at https://wttpap.most.gov.tw/TTT/Home/Program?TYPE_NO=B01&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1. You don’t have to be in a “tech” area like comp sci or EE, but should be able to state at least an interest in doing business in tech. This is a central gov’t-coordinated program that matches overseas Chinese with government offices, universities and private industry for about eight weeks during the summer. My daughter did it last summer at a university doing environmental research. Dorm accommodations were NT6,000 for eight weeks, stipend was NT600/day, and her plane tkt to Taiwan was reimbursed at about 30%. She got good hands-on experience, improved her Chinese and saw and learned a lot about Taiwan that she hadn’t been exposed to before.

Ohhh wait till you hit the job market lol. It’ll look nice you put Taiwan in your resume and stuff showing you can work in a international setting and have Chinese abilities. But actually useful skills, not so much development here as you’ll just follow instructions and busy work. No creativity or project of your own. They don’t like that here. Again it’s a generalization.

There may also be an alumni office you could talk to and ask for a list of people from Taiwan who have shared their info. Check linkedin or facebok also for Taiwan chapters. I don’t think interning is as much of a thing here and pay is pretty horrible, but it could still be a plus if you could pull it off. US colleges have longer summer breaks, so that could be good too.

Aren’t most internships in Taiwan usually one year?

Taiwan News is now seeking interns:

Before applying for an internship at a particular business entity, I recommend doing some background research. :2cents:

OP, have you considered looking at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)?

It’s the US’s pseudo-embassy here in Taiwan and they have summer internships for almost all of their departments.

The US Department of Commerce (or the commercial section is what they call it here) as well as the State Department internships. I would look into the State department internships first. Those interns get paid bank and have housing covered whereas the commercial section interns don’t get paid.

I assume they have a social media department since their FB has seen regular updates in the past couple of years. When I interned there (for the commercial section) about 8 years ago, the FB page had almost no content.

Aside from AIT, try looking at 104.com , which is the job listing site for Taiwan. I can also suggest you ask your family friends to see if they have any openings at their offices. Best way in is guan xi!

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Thanks for the info! sounds like a great program- I’ll take a look. So your daughter was just in Taiwan for the duration of the summer for this internship?

Makes sense, I could see how that would be the case in the Taiwanese work environment - thanks for the honest input!

Ah. Wow, shame that that’s a phenomenon in Taiwan nowadays… Definitely will do some research first.

Thanks, been taking a look at AIT but only found one for non-US/non dual citizens so far, but am going to go ahead and contact them!
edit: found it here https://2016.export.gov/taiwan/internships/index.asp

That’s the commercial section/department of commerce internship that I applied for.

I assume that the state department internships are applied for on the US website somewhere.

Good luck! It’s a great opportunity to work with great people!

Yes, she was. She’s always spent time in the Taipei area (extended family’s there, and also due to our cultural prejudices, I suppose), so exploring the Kaohsiung/Pingtung area was interesting for her. I just did a quick online search and found that the program has unfortunately been cancelled. See https://wttpap.most.gov.tw/TTT/Home/NewsMain/MTA2MnwyMDE4LTAxLTA5IDE4OjI6NTQ=. See the Chinese text; the English translation is not entirely accurate. My wife says (just slightly tongue-in-cheek) that Tsai Ing-wen probably cut it because it would benefit the KMT more than the DPP & friends.

Yeah, lack of ethics is a phenomenon in Taiwan. It also happens in other countries. :frowning:

(I wasn’t trying to warn you about the “foreign wolves”, but they’re also a thing.)