Internships Proving Useful to Communications Grad Student From Taiwan
By Bruce E. Beans
Chi-Fang Tsao
When Taipei resident Chi-Fang Tsao attended National Taiwan Normal University, her undergraduate major was Secondary English Education. However, because she came to Temple University in Philadelphia to earn her master’s degree, she was able to switch her graduate degree major to Communications Management.
And thanks to Temple’s innovative Dual Bachelor’s Master’s Degree program (DBMD)—which enables students to spend three years as an undergraduate at their home university and two years earning their Master’s degree at Temple—this spring the scholarship recipient will have earned both degrees in just five years.
Besides her classwork, Tsao has also greatly benefited from three internships she obtained through her Temple connections. Last year one of her professors and advisors alerted her about her first internship, an unpaid communications position with a non-profit organization that empowers people with autism and disabilities.
This past academic year she also has enjoyed two paid, on-campus communications internships. For the alumni office of the university’s School of Podiatric Medicine, she writes newsletters and helps run health fairs and conferences. She also uses social media to communicate school news and events. Her second paying internship, with the university’s Career Center, involves planning and running events for international students.
Tsao also participates in the university’s highly diverse International Student Association and its Taiwanese Student Association—for which she has also been the group’s public relations officer. “With other students from Taiwan I help organize and promote events that help us get to know one another and help each other,” she says. “They helped me when I arrived here because I didn’t know how to open a bank account or get a cell phone. Now it feels good to do the same thing for other new students.”
Thanks to her experiences at Temple, Tsao is confident in getting a communications and/or marketing job later this year in the United States. “My boss in the Career Center has already introduced me to some potential employers,” says Tsao. “I also have a broad range of experiences, such as social media and event planning, that I didn’t have when I was in Taiwan or an undergraduate exchange student at Radford University in Virginia. Temple has offered me a lot of opportunities and developed my potential.”
To other Taiwanese students interested in studying in the U.S., Tsao says: “Temple University provides excellent programs, a diverse environment and fun activities for students. You will experience the real urban life of America if you study at Temple.”
