NO MORE internship for Economics and Legal Management students next academic year.
Students will be sent to seminars or asked to do research, instead of summer “on-the-job training” (OJT) which often involved only clerical work, officials said.
“We thought that it is better for us to have seminars than to send out students for on-the-job training, considering that most of them [were] just asked to be clerks, or do clerical jobs like [photocopying], stapling,” said Legal Management coordinator Antonio Chua.
Chua added that law offices prioritize law students as interns rather than those taking up paralegal programs such as Legal Management.
The lack of time allotted for research prompted the Economics faculty to remove the internship program.
“We’ve had the OJT program since 1995, but it seemed to be non-receptive to the course because we’re dealing here with research and we only have 240 hours to do it,” said Emmanuel Lopez, chair of the Arts and Letters Department of Social Sciences.
Seminars and more subjects on law and research will be added to the curricula of Economics and Legal Management to compensate for the removal of the internship program.
Chua and Lopez agreed that both programs should prioritize rigid academic requirements, rather than internship.
“[Economics] is more academic, more objective, more issue-oriented and more research,” Lopez said.
Some students expressed dismay over the removal of internship, usually taken in the summer prior to senior year, from the curriculum.
“Nakakalungkot kasi ‘yun (OJT) ‘yung hinihintay namin. ‘Yun ‘yung experience namin [para] sa future,” said incoming Economics sophomore Kaycee Antonio.
Also, some incoming seniors who have taken their practicum fear that the next batch of students might face difficulties in seeking jobs after graduation.
“[‘Y]ung mga nasa lower batch baka mahirapan sila kasi kapag nag-OJT ka, marami kang matututunan lalo na kapag sa government,” said Legal Management student Emmanuel Cabalfin. GENA MYRTLE P. TERRE
