The one near me uses Uni interns, some good and so not. And the couple running the shop too working long hours.
What a shit internship. Working in a shop.
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That has forever been a conundrum for me. Most of the convenience store staff are shockingly competent, and theyâre juggling far more tasks than I probably could. (And definitely putting up with more shit than I could.) Yet presumably theyâre the uneducated ones, lacking the potential of the, er, often somewhat inert students of the same age that Iâm teaching?
EDIT: God, imagine if convenience store staff unionized and went on strike. Thatâd throw the country into a panic by lunchtime.
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yeah, the system is banjaxed, haha. but I was thinking maybe our office could make use of interns, maybe one day will call the Uni and inquire
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Because the company culture is "be competent, do everything ". when the job calls for âdo everything to make things workâ people become competent, or quit fast. in most office jobs, the job description is âdo exactly and just what the boss saysâ and this breeds a âthis is not my jobâ mentality whenever people need to do anything extra.
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I had an argument with the wife on the value of doing an âinternshipâ in 711. She said it depended on your major.
I see very little added value. You could just walk into a 7 and get the job yourself anytime! Does it progress their career?
The unis sound like rubbish to me, helping their students getting an internship in the local convenience store.
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I personally suspect itâs a very useful experience for them. Customer service is good for everyone because it makes you marginally less likely to be a dick when dealing with staff later in life. The multitasking skills they must develop, wow. The ability to learn whatever new systems or promotions the convenience stores put in every 72 hours or so, the flexibility ⌠Iâd certainly view an experience like that as more useful than the âOh, photocopy these and make some teaâ experiences theyâd likely have interning at a company.
I think it might be useful for their life skills.
But I donât know how useful it is for professional development.
I guess my point is they could simply get the job themselves and look for an industry specific internship is a lot more valuable.
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Ah, yes. For the university to âguideâ them to an internship they could easily get by just walking down 90% of the roads in Taiwan does seem questionable.
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Depends on the university, the department, and the student. I know our university has some good opportunities through connections
When I was in high school we did part time jobs to get these basic skills, mostly fast food and grocery stores, some people got lucky with hardware stores. I knew one guy who worked in a convenience store.
I donât think this is common back home any more, but I think there is a lot of value for everyone to get introduced to the world of work. And if they donât have any real skills to start, this is the way
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Yes, I think that absolutely everyone should work in customer service and also food service for at least 6 months to a year (if not for a number of years), regardless of their education or skills, for exactly this reason. But universities shoving students into internships at FamilyMart and Starbucks are not thinking about it from a âdonât be a dick and also learn to multitaskâ standpoint.
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I wouldnât pay fees to a uni that sends my kids to 711 for their internship.
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when i was in high school we did this to get money 
the skills were an afterthoughtâŚ
for me military service was the best âadultingâ experience, but its a very rigid system which is not for everyone.
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711 as a corporate (uni president that is) can have many useful internships (finance, logistics, procurement, product development, partnership management ) but to be a clerck is not one of them.
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Neither would I. I wonder which ones do this, Iâm guessing it is bottom tier private universities
I donât know about 7-11 âinternsâ, but the Starbucks and Everrich âinternshipâ students that I know attend(ed) national (public) universities. Many, many of them have graduated and gone on to work as baristas and sales staff people at those places upon graduating. They just got a bump in salary (from whatever 20somethingK they were paid per month to lower 30sK per month). University diploma my butt.
If you think thatâs bad, imagine coming here as an international student, where you already have basic life skills because you didnât grow up in Taiwan, and getting put to work in a slaughterhouse or factory as part of your course because the company owner bunged some red envelopes to the uni admin. 
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TBH, this is also the destiny of many a student in my home country. Majors in comparative literature, drama, classic greek literatureâŚ
Only nobody calls a part time student job internship.
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Majors in literature or whatever other things people want to laugh at for âbeing a waste of time and moneyâ arenât something to laugh at. The vast majority of entry level jobs requiring college degrees (and even masters degrees) today require basic math, literacy, and computer skills that anyone with a decent high school education could do with ease, assuming everything else in their life wasnât done for them.
Having a sheet of paper called a diploma is far more of a message to the employer that âhey, I take myself seriously and spent an extra four years in a classroom learning stuff and Iâm ready to learn moreâ than it is âlook, Iâm already ready to do the work you need me to doâ. You wanna graduate ready to do a specific job, you go to trade school/community college/other direct to job post secondary school, not a university. Even people who major in computer science arenât jumping straight into their job on day one. They major in computer science and are then trained in the specific thing theyâre supposed to do in their job when they start their job. The college diploma is only saying âI have a foundation in stuffsâ, even though itâs clear thatâs not always the case.
When I was in college (university), I did graphic design for a company during my school breaks. 100% of what I was doing I learned in my freshman high school imaging class or on the job. But they NEVER would have hired a âgraphic design internâ that wasnât currently in college or already holding a college diploma â they would be âunqualifiedâ. Yet I was âqualifiedâ because I was majoring in linguistics?! No, I was âqualifiedâ because I was going to college/university, therefore I must be a motivated person, regardless of whether or not that was true.
When I graduated from college and became a teacher, I piggybacked off what I learned in college about learning to find out information for myself, aka âresearchâ, in order to advance my skills. When I saw that many of the skills I wanted are, for stupid as hell reasons, âproprietaryâ, and required a special training course to learn more, I decided it was worth it for me, after I did my research, to spend that time and money to learn more. Did that training give me much of a salary boost? Yeah, enough to make it worth my time and money. And that training was directly related to what I was doing job-wise, rather than the indirect preparation Iâd received in undergrad. But I could have majored in underwater basket weaving in college, as long as I needed to do research into how to best weave baskets and read lots of stuff to learn more stuff, and I would still have the skills an employer wants â knowing how to learn new things when itâs necessary for one to go learn new things in order to accomplish a task.
You wanna talk about skills Taiwanese university students donât have, itâs learning out how to figure out information for themselves. Computer programmers who donât know to plug in a microwave when the outlet is right next to the microwave and thereâs a little note that says âin order to save energy, please unplug after useâ = not exactly bright individuals that should be hired for computer programming, even if they did graduate top of the class. At that point, truly no one cares what you majored in, as long as youâre blubbering around with no idea how to do basic practical life things.
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I feel like my career/education path is exactly what most people are discussing here. But I grew up to be independent really early, partly because I had no choice, partly because thatâs just who am. And Iâm lucky that my country doesnât really care about uni degrees for entry level jobs.
I finished high school with good grades but didnât know what to do afterwards. I had already been working at McDonalds for 3 years while in high school so decided to just go full time at McDonalds. At 18 years old I was sent to McDonaldâs management school and went to McDonaldâs management school 3 times and an independent technical school paid for by my boss and ended up with a tertiary education in Business Management (not a Bachelors, diploma level on the AQF) that I didnât pay for and got paid to do. I ended up working at maccas for about 6 years all up, I also went back to work night shift for a few months before my move to Taiwan for some extra cash
Iâve kind of bounced around since then but I still think working at McDonalds when I was 15 set myself up really well to know how the world works early on.
Fast forward to now Iâm 30 and have a job offer to work from home for about $90,000AUD a year which many uni graduates my age would struggle to make.
I also have a friend who makes about $150,000 a year and is a uni graduate but his job has nothing to do with his degree.
Going to uni is just A path, itâs not THE path nor the best path for everyone.
I think working at a good company with a good work ethic from an entry level job into higher positions is a much easier path for many people.
I donât really agree with Taiwanese parenting style, I donât agree with Taiwanese education system either. But parents would be able to overcome the education flaws by teaching life skills to their kids.
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