EMPLOYABILITY OF GRADUATES: INSIGHTS TO ENHANCING THE EMPLOYABILITY THROUGH RESEARCH OF INTERNSHIPS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP DESIGN STUDENTS
Year: 2017
Editor: Berg, Arild; Bohemia, Erik; Buck, Lyndon; Gulden, Tore; Kovacevic, Ahmed; Pavel, Nenad
Author: Petersen, Dorthe Fiona
Series: E&PDE
Institution: KEA, Denmark
Section: Collaboration and Industrial involvement in Design Education
Page(s): 260-265
ISBN: 978-1-904670-84-1
Abstract
The focus of this paper is to look at what insights we can get from the students’ internships as to examine which elements that enhances the employability of the students at the entrepreneurship design education taught at KEA, The Copenhagen School of Design and Technology.What can we learn, from how we prepare the students for the internship and from the feedback from our students and the internship companies? What didactical and educational activities do (and should) take place before, under and after the internships? What competencies do the employers or the entrepreneurs demand – and how do we plan and execute our education and teaching to match that? As an entrepreneurship design education we are also interested in finding out who creates their own jobs and why. The used research method is analysing existing data – the written feedback from the students and companies after the internships. To complement this data, pilot interviews were performed with companies taking interns in an attempt to identify factors that enhances employability for entrepreneurship students. After identifying such employability factors, the education will be assessed to evaluate what elements should be either enhanced or decreased in order to implement changes so that the employability can be enhanced.
Keywords: Enhancing Employability, Internship, Entrepreneurship Design, Assessment Tools, Internship Didactics.