Más que un requisito: La importancia estratégica de las prácticas en el perfil profesional de la FCSH

Abstract

CONDITION FOR PUBLICATION OF PROJECT. purpose of this project is to determine the perceptions of students from the Faculty of Social Sciences at ESPOL regarding pre-professional internships in terms of weaknesses in planning and development, in order to propose strategies to improve their academic and professional profiles. This research is justified by the institution's need to improve this process of linking academia and the workplace. A descriptive and exploratory research design based on Design Thinking was used, applying methods such as interviews, structured surveys with a population of 346 students, saturation and clustering techniques, generating other tools such as SWOT, the impact-difficulty matrix of motivation, and motivation and professional identification metrics. The results indicate that most students do not schedule their internships in advance, thus diminishing their influence on the development of future professionals. The need for communication proposals oriented toward intrinsic motivation and a sense of professional identity was also present. These indicate that pre-professional internships are a strategic aspect of university education that must be managed intentionally and proactively to ensure their academic relevance and consequent employability. Keywords: Professional identity, Student motivation, Professional development.