Curricular internships as an approach pillar between firms and universities: the 3x3 solution adopted in retail management

Abstract

The close relationship between higher education institutions and businesses is a major facilitator of students’ access to their first job opportunities, as well as a channel for reciprocal transfer of knowledge and innovation. Curricular internships have attracted increasing interest both from students seeking competitive qualifications and from companies willing to contribute to the common goal of providing graduates with suitable competences. These internships also represent a powerful tool to foster the effort to strengthen those links between the academic world and companies, and to do so throughout the academic path of students. Over the past few years, several higher education institutions in Portugal have included internships in their curricula. However, in courses in the area of management, internships are limited to a single one in the final semester of the bachelor or even of the master degree. In our case, students are exposed to a business experience earlier than usual, starting right from the first year and having an internship each year of their degree. Within this framework of competences development, students benefit of curricular internships in different ways but the main goal is to provide the opportunity for students to develop their skills and to put theoretical knowledge in practice in a real world work environment. The relevance of the option of offering three internships can be analyzed from different perspectives. One possible perspective focuses on the value that curricular internships add to the qualifications of future jobseekers. This study aimed at determining students’ perception on several dimension, like the impact of having several curricular internships has on their employability, their expectations and fears associated to their transition to the labor market, and how those are affected by the experience accumulated throughout the degree. With this purpose, 79 higher education students, of the first, second and third year of the degree in Retail Management, answered a questionnaire at the end of their curricular internship. The results of this survey evidence that students consider that the opportunity provided by an internship benefits their employability and eases their transition from the academic environment to the labor world as it clearly reduces their fears and fosters their maturity.