Over the past few weeks, 282 students from the School of Management, Hotel and Tourism at the University of Algarve have started internships in companies in the region, in other parts of the country and in Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Mozambique. Students of this organic unit of the Algarve university will spend 2 to 4 months in the host companies, after which they will receive the respective training diploma.
This internship program covers as many undergraduate students as those who attend the Superior Professional Technical Courses (TeSP). «In the internship, the skills obtained during the study period are tested and the so-called soft-skills are reinforced, such as: interpersonal relationships, teamwork, meeting schedule/time management, communication skills, problem solving, among others» , illustrated the UAlg.
The internships are divided between companies from different areas of activity. The tourism sector is the one that absorbs the most students from ESGHT, 43,7% of the total number of interns, who will be distributed among hotels and similar sectors, travel and transport agencies, theme parks and other tourist services. The services sector, namely accounting and consultancy offices, the public sector, banking and insurance, information systems and technologies, are also good “customers” of this UAlg school, hosting 33,4% of internships. The other students will work in the area of Commerce and Industry (6,3%) and other activities (16,4%).
«Each internship is accompanied by a teacher from the school (advisor) and by an element of the receiving organization (supervisor). In addition to the mandatory internships, there are also extracurricular ones that are carried out by students from the 1st and 2nd years of undergraduate courses. With these (extracurriculars), students start training in a work context right away, and at the end of the course they can accumulate between 6 to 8 months in internship, which facilitates entry into the labor market. This attitude is cultivated by ESGHT in the sense that the student builds his/her curriculum. At TeSP, the internship is mandatory in the 2nd year and lasts for six months», added the Algarve Higher Education Institution.
In all, revealed UAlg, ESGHT received more than 350 internship proposals from companies, which were made available to students, who are also given the opportunity to suggest their internship. «The School encourages the development of the plan of functions to be performed and the contact with the company to be developed by the student. Overall, planning and managing nearly three hundred internships require complex logistics, but which ESGHT has already incorporated as a routine and has allowed, over the years, to accumulate a database with more than 2 companies/organizations", he concluded the University of the Algarve.
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