Taiwan Internship, Anyone?

Taipei American School Expands Summer Academy, Internship Choices for Students

An increasing number of Taipei American School (TAS) students now participate in six-week summer internships with leading businesses and research institutions in the greater Taipei area. Internships offer opportunities for TAS students to capitalize on excellent experiences available locally, as well as to have meaningful experiences that help them become confident individuals prepared to adapt and succeed in a rapidly changing world.

Internships are also valuable in of themselves, giving students real-world professional experiences through which they learn about themselves and develop and apply their interests and abilities. During the summer before senior year of high school, they are also valuable as a way to prepare for the process of applying for college and deciding what to pursue after TAS.

This year, students can sign up for an internship as part of the 2011 TAS Summer Academy. Students commit to working for six full weeks (13 June-20 July) at their place of internship; mentors within organizations commit to providing a meaningful work experience and to being available to provide insight, guidance, and a letter of reference.

As readers may see on the Summer Academy’s website (http://tassummeracademy.org), the school works hard to assist interns and mentors to understand what is expected of them.

When the summer internship program began at TAS in the early 2000s, the pioneer group of 14 students all went to one location; now there are many more types of internships and people willing to serve as mentors. Not all organizations have appropriate openings each year, and sometimes an appropriate student is not available for an opening. New mentors and companies are added as good opportunities become available.

Since 2006, former TAS parent Boon Kang has welcomed student interns to Boon Associates, including three TAS summer interns. Under his direction, interns learn a lot about economic trends worldwide and assist him by doing extensive guided research.

All internships are custom designed to match students with appropriate organizations—it is not a matter of putting a student in an existing slot. Internship Coordinator Jim Boyle and Director of Research David Devore meet with students to determine their interests and to prepare for matching them with appropriate opportunities in local businesses and institutions.

Many local organizations have experience working with college and graduate students as interns; they recognize the need to make adjustments when they welcome a 17-year-old. Thus although Lion travel has had interns for ten years, 2010 was the first year that TAS parent Vicky Ling arranged for her company to bring in TAS summer interns. She appointed a project leader from the team of Lion Travel employees who serve as mentors; together the team has developed a different program and set of challenges, giving students opportunities to think about and do a lot of things in the travel business.

Connecting education to tourism and fun has proved to be a great learning experience for the organization as well as the interns.

Starting in 2010, TAS expanded the existing internship program by assisting more interested students to pursue scientific research. In addition to diversifying and intensifying relationships between TAS and area research institutions, TAS now complements summer internship opportunities with academic-year courses, Scientific Research I and II, for designing and carrying out independent scientific research; some students continue research they started during the summer, while others embark upon new projects.

Combining a six-week research internship with a year-long research course will give some students a meaningful opportunity to develop a research question in their chosen field of science.

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