Experience of Makerere University Students who did either virtual or physical Internship

Abstract

This study examined the experiences of Makerere University students who did either Virtual or Physical internship. It was a qualitative study with descriptive research design. It explored the experiences, found out the experiences of Students who did either virtual or physical in-ternship. Sample of 16 students above the age of 18 years were selected by use of purposive sampling. We collected Data by use of individual face-to-face in-depth structured interviews and analysed data thematically, Identified, examined, and interpreted common patterns ac-cording to themes that were guided by the study objectives and research questions. We took note of deviations from similar patterns and made justifications for differences found. While conducting our study, we found out that participants interest while choosing their internship placements was mostly based on the circumstances and accessibility since they were having internship and lectures at the same time. This made those who did physical choose places near to the University or campus and those of virtual decided to do it since they would have time to do their internship and attend their lectures in time. We therefore conclude that internship being the first working experience for the students, the university should put more time in preparing students both physically and psychologically on some of the challenges and conditions that they will find in their places of work since lack of enough preparation affects their experiences for example one of the participants had little knowledge on how to use computers which made her experience negative. The time given for internship, (four to eight weeks) is a short time for students who are in second year to put what they have learnt in two years in practice. The university should in-crease the time since students need time to adjust to the working environment and start the actual training since most of the first weeks are spent in adjusting to the culture of the work-ing environment.