Summary

HZ University of Applied Sciences requires mandatory internship(s) in their curriculum for each student in order to graduate. Every student is given the option to find the internship that they desire. Despite the common main goal of the students, every type of person has different expectations and desires for an internship. This research investigates the internship experiences of the tourism HZ students and testing whether there are differences between the Dutch and International students. To examine the hypothesis a survey of 25 questions was created and spread among second, third- and fourth-year tourism HZ students. The survey was constructed of 21 quantitative questions, while the other 4 were qualitative.
The quantitative part of the survey was focused on examining how the students found their internship and the acquired skills, while the qualitative part gave the possibility for the participants to express their opinion regarding their internship effectiveness and if they had struggled in the workplace. The research results are showing the similarities and differences between the Dutch and International students in terms of their internship experiences. The most notable outcomes were found in terms of the techniques that the two groups used to find their internships and the challenges that most affect them emotionally during their internship. For instance, comparing the International and Dutch participants, the most effective technique that the International students found successful is “Help from a social network or family acquaintance”, while for the Dutch students, it is the “Cold-calling” method. To overcome the differences and provide beneficial suggestions at the end of the research, a list of recommendations can be found, showing how the university career center can help each student to better prepare for his/her internship.
The given advices are focused on the applying process, coping with emotional stress, updating the internship database of the university career center, etc.