Internships should benefit all
Your article strikes a sensitive chord with this semi-retired public relations professor who, for nearly two decades, supervised an internship program that saw dozens of public relations students transitioning successfully into the “real world” with hands-on experience and industry knowledge (“Internships are not manual labor: MOE,” May 15, page 4).
One point that I consistently stressed with my internship supervisees, as well as with my academic and professional colleagues, was that an internship should be designed to give the student real-life experience while better identifying his or her own skills and interests.
Yes, on occasion, one will be asked (told) to “go pick up my laundry” or “clean out the office storage closet.” These must be one-off requests, not “business as usual.” As one corporate president for whom I once worked remarked when I asked him why he was washing dirty dishes in the staff breakroom: “If I don’t do it, how can I expect others to do it?”
I make it very clear with the internship on-site supervisor that the student is at his or her place of business to learn from the professionals there, with the hopes of possibly being offered an entry-level position if things work out as anticipated.
I also make it very clear with the student that he or she is being offered this unique opportunity to learn more about a specific career field and that I will be monitoring their progress closely.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is prudent in cautioning schools about the potential pitfalls of internship opportunities, but I will turn the spotlight back on the faculty adviser and the student to pay attention to the requirements of the internship and to monitor progress.
Internships are — or should be — a mutually satisfying partnership in which the school itself, the student and the professional organization offering the opportunity benefit.
The school can say confidently: “We prepare our students for the demands and the realities of today’s working world.”
The student can say proudly: “I learned my strengths and weaknesses as I prepared for my future as a professional; I know what will be expected of me when I enter the working world and I am confident I will succeed.”
The organization can say: “We offer a realistic environment in which the student is able to better identify his or her skills and abilities, and at the same time, we are afforded the opportunity to evaluate a potential employee.”
If managed and supervised correctly, internships should be “win-win-win” — hard work perhaps, but definitely not “manual labor.”
Kirk Hazlett
Tampa, Florida
Climate action needed now
Your editorial asked: “Does the central argument of the Global Climate Strike For Future movement — that adults and governments have not done enough to address climate change — hold true?” (“Give voice to climate facts, not fear,” May 7, page 8). The answer is yes.
The youth on strike are not stroppy teenagers rebelling without a cause. They are channeling what the scientists said in the UN report, summarized on the front page of Taipei Times: “To contain warming at 1.5°C, human-made global net carbon dioxide emissions would need to fall by about 45 percent by 2030 from 2010 levels and reach ‘net zero’ by mid-century” (“‘Unprecedented’ climate steps are needed, UN says,” Oct. 9, 2018).
I remember writing a school essay a quarter-century ago — hiding in an air-conditioned room from Taipei’s summer heat — about the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, then already poised to become a success.
I wondered how Taiwan could participate in the next worldwide environmental challenge against global warming. Alas, I did not have the fortitude of school strikers Chang Ting-wei (張庭瑋) and Greta Thunberg to put my thoughts into action.
The UN scientists’ report shows that the sooner we act, the easier it will be to arrive at a climate-sensible economy smoothly and equitably. Before reaching net zero, every generation that dithers by dismissing climate science leaves the next with an even larger carbon debt, requiring ever more drastic action.
Except Chang and Thunberg’s generation. Theirs is one that will face catastrophe if we do not act in the next decade, according to the scientists.
By the time they are allowed to vote, it will be too late.
This is why they were on the streets on Friday, stating the facts, telling everyone that “the Emperor has no clothes.”
Grown-up talk of an “economic crash” is fear-mongering, which aims to silence climate facts and science.
Unlike with human interlocutors, the only way to negotiate with the climate is through the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and in this negotiation, the whole of humanity is on the same side; we are all in it together.
If Taiwan wants to take its rightful place in the international community, there is no room for complacency or special pleading on climate action.
Te Khai-su
Helsingfors, Finland
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS