Summary: The Benefits Of Experiential Learning

Few roles are very important to decide whether an internship would be successful or not.

Educational institutions and educators should promote experiential learning and assist students to make sure the internship experience is beneficial for their future career paths. Educational institutions have to build good partnership between students, institution and the hospitality industry.

Employers should be willing to pass meaningful tasks to interns, to assign interns to a qualified supervisor or trainer, who can support the intern with direction and feedback. A positive and friendly working environment in which interns are able to develop themselves is also vital. Some companies may take interns as cheap labors, which is not the right and main

Marlena A. Bednarska and Marcin Olszewski (2016) published a very interesting article, which claims that an unsatisfying internship could also cause the decrease of the student’s future employment intention. Working experience is one of the factors that influence student’s perspective and image toward the industry. Industry-based experiential learning also gives access to students to view their expectations and if they fit in the certain field. It helps with getting better understanding of how organizations operate daily and enhancing skills required by employers, such as communication, problem solving, and the ability to work in a team. However, students are often seen as a solution for the short-term shortage of labor, at the same time, students are not highly cost sources to reach to. There are a lot of internships that inquire long working hours but with low or even no salary. If students were only treated like a temporary low cost labor, and the trainer or supervisor is not willing to put enough effort on training or introducing the organization, the actual working experience might not meet the original expectation of the students, they would leave negative attitudes of the industry and intention of involving in the industry may

If the interns leave a good impression of the industry, it is very likely for them to look for future career path in the professional field; if not, the industry may lose some potential leader in the future. However, even if the intern found himself dislikes this industry, it would not always be a bad thing. If a person still does not feel like fitting in the working condition after conducting a good internship with qualified supervisor, friendly environment and colleagues, then the person would be sure that this industry is not where he wants to develop further career. The person could transfer himself into other professions before devoting too much in the wrong are. Also, the employers are able to filter the right candidates by observing interns during the work. If someone is apparently unsuitable in the industry, employers would not spend too much unnecessary source on him because he would possibly resign after a