The Hong Kong Housing Society Academy provided valuable internship opportunities to 13 of our Higher Diploma students last summer. The Academy was set up by the Hong Kong Housing Society in 2005 with the objectives to promote professional development of housing and related services, and to encourage experience sharing in Hong Kong and other regions through professional exchange, internship and placement programmes, scholarship/bursary schemes and event sponsorship. The Academy not only assigned our School's students to work in different departments, but also provided personal development training to the students, such as "Quality Services Training" and "Communication Skills in the Workplace", to help them cope with possible problems they may encounter in the future.

Mrs Margaret Chan, Director (Corporate Services) of Hong Kong Housing Society, was pleased with the performance of our students. Her colleagues also gave very positive feedback, saying that SCS students were responsible, had a good working attitude and they integrated well into different teams. In the training sessions, they were proactive and took initiatives to participate by asking questions, thus creating a good atmosphere for all participants.

Mrs Chan encouraged students to treasure every opportunity in their internship, to develop their working skills and social network, and most important of all, to be proactive in their work. As the Hong Kong Housing Society is a social service organisation, Mrs Chan hopes that SCS students will enhance their work skills during the internships and show their care to the community, so that they will contribute to the society in the future.

Breakthrough offered internships to 6 of our Higher Diploma students for its "Telephone Polling Project" from October to December 2008. The students gained valuable knowledge and experience on social research studies through working in the Ministry Research & Development Unit of the organisation.

Mr Chan King Chuen, Manager of Ministry Research & Development, and Mr Pang Hing Tung, Researcher, were very pleased with the performance of our students. "SCS students had a good working attitude. They listened to the advice of the Unit's supervisors carefully and looked for solutions when problems arose, they did all they can to ensure the work done was of high quality," Mr Pang said. He also praised the students for being punctual and polite.

Mr Chan echoed Mr Pang's views. "SCS students treasured the learning opportunities we offered. They paid a lot of effort in their job and took the advice from their colleagues seriously. Their positive attitude made the internship even more meaningful," he said. Mr. Chan hopes that the internship will help students learn in a real working environment and foster their future career development.

Breakthrough also provided a series of workshops for the interns of the "Telephone Polling Project". The workshops introduced basic research concepts, such as statistical analysis and report writing, which equipped them to perform their job well.

[Last Update in June, 2009]

As one of our industrial partners, The Commercial Press (HK) Ltd. provided one of our Higher Diploma programme students, Candy Cheuk, with an internship programme in the electronic publishing department last summer. Since Candy had been studying Higher Diploma Programme in Applied Translation for a year, she was assigned to translate and edit the materials for publishing.

According to Ms Christine Chan, the Manager of the Department, the working attitude of our student was impressive. "She was willing to do well in everything assigned to her. Besides helping with research, organisation, editing and testing, she even helped with the sales work at the Book Fair."

Ms Chan extended her encouragement to all our HD students. "For better career development, one's academic qualifications and attitude towards work are of equal importance. Students should persevere, take initiative, be willing to commit and learn the art of life at work. With the internship programme, students can familiarise themselves with the profession they have chosen, and prepare themselves for their future career."

Co-wear International Limited is one of our industrial partners providing internship opportunities to our fashion design students. Last year, Yorkie Fung, a student of the Higher Diploma Programme in Fashion Design and Product Development joined the internship programme and worked under the guidance of Ms Hidy Ng, a renowned local fashion designer.

Ms Ng has high opinion of Yorkie. She considers her mature, independent, responsible and organised. "Yorkie has her own ideas in designing clothes and has leadership in managing her scope of work." She is very positive about the internship programme in that it helps students to know more about themselves. "If students can take good advantage of the opportunity to learn and develop in their desired profession, they can eventually stand out and capture success."