Global Internship as an Active Learning Course (Toward an Industry.University Collaboration in Internships)

Abstract

An increasing number of Japanese companies have initiated internship programs to promote their businesses and recruit talented youth. Most of them offer brief internship programs lasting only for 3–10 days and try to reach out to maximum possible university students. Although it is an irrefutable fact that an internship itself offers valuable opportunity for both future employers and employees (students), this study questions the current “short internship boom” that only seems to hasten university students to pursue a job since the early stages of their college life and diminishes the value of their undergraduate education. Instead, this study asserts the importance of an industry-university collaboration in an internship program and proposes an internship course as an active learning course. The study argues that an active-learning-based internship can facilitate students to analyze businesses extensively, improve their communication skills, and link their internship experience to their undergraduate program. As a case study, the Global Internship program offered by Kwansei Gakuin University since 2012 is analyzed herein.