I talked with Andrew for awhile last night to explain my thoughts on the current exchange process. While there are areas for improvement, I felt that most of the "problems" we are facing are not structural ones. As Scott put, they have a lot more to do with our LC culture. I'm more of a concrete numbers guy, so I created the chart below to more accurately express my concern.
To explain, these are the actual exchange numbers for @-Madison over the past three years split into Management(MT), Technical (TT), Education (ET) and Developmental (DT) categories. The MT/DT is the ratio of Management to Developmental traineeships. The SUS/DT is the ratio of Sustainable to Developmental traineeships. @ internationally defined sustainable(i'm paraphrasing and interpreting) as all traineeships that do not hinder the financial growth of an LC. 90% of developmental traineeships are this way and the only way they are sustainable is if they are corporately funded, and even then they are only sustainable as long as the company still supports them.
@-Madison needs all four exchanges to take place. period. My concern is that the ratio of sustainable traineeships needs to stay around 2, so that the LCs can absorb the financial burden of supporting DTs. I believe that this drop in ratio is directly proportional to the ratio of graduated students to undergrad students who went on the traineeships. In order to get the better MT, TT, and ET traineeships, you need time and experience. Most undergrads don't have both, so they are forced to do DTs. Now, the culture part. The culture of our LC STRONGLY encourages members to go on an exchange. My concern is that the focus has shifted from "Go on an exchange" to "Go on an exchange NOW (while you're still in school)". Again, both undergrads and graduates need to go on @exchanges, but the vast majority have to go on sustainable traineeships. Which means, the majority either have to be graduated, or have completed their junior year. So once the culture of the LC shifts a little less towards go on one NOW and more towards plan on going on one in the future (possibly 2-3 years from now), the ratio should go back to where it belongs.
| '04 | '05 | '06 | 3 Year Total | |
| MT | 6 | 9 | 3 | 18 |
| TT | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| ET | 4 | 0 | 3 | 7 |
| DT | 4 | 5 | 8 | 17 |
| Total | 14 | 16 | 15 | 45 |
| MT/DT | 1.5 | 1.8 | 0.38 | 1.06 |
| SUS/DT | 2.5 | 2.2 | 0.88 | 1.65 |
To explain, these are the actual exchange numbers for @-Madison over the past three years split into Management(MT), Technical (TT), Education (ET) and Developmental (DT) categories. The MT/DT is the ratio of Management to Developmental traineeships. The SUS/DT is the ratio of Sustainable to Developmental traineeships. @ internationally defined sustainable(i'm paraphrasing and interpreting) as all traineeships that do not hinder the financial growth of an LC. 90% of developmental traineeships are this way and the only way they are sustainable is if they are corporately funded, and even then they are only sustainable as long as the company still supports them.
@-Madison needs all four exchanges to take place. period. My concern is that the ratio of sustainable traineeships needs to stay around 2, so that the LCs can absorb the financial burden of supporting DTs. I believe that this drop in ratio is directly proportional to the ratio of graduated students to undergrad students who went on the traineeships. In order to get the better MT, TT, and ET traineeships, you need time and experience. Most undergrads don't have both, so they are forced to do DTs. Now, the culture part. The culture of our LC STRONGLY encourages members to go on an exchange. My concern is that the focus has shifted from "Go on an exchange" to "Go on an exchange NOW (while you're still in school)". Again, both undergrads and graduates need to go on @exchanges, but the vast majority have to go on sustainable traineeships. Which means, the majority either have to be graduated, or have completed their junior year. So once the culture of the LC shifts a little less towards go on one NOW and more towards plan on going on one in the future (possibly 2-3 years from now), the ratio should go back to where it belongs.
posted by Bruhaha at 3:42 PM
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