Xiamen University Malaysia (XMUM) has signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with 6 industry-leading companies on 3 December 2018, to provide internship and employment opportunities for XMUM students and to explore new modes of win-win cooperation between university and industry. The companies took part in the signing ceremony include Deloitte, Infopro, MTCM Hub, Mythmedix TCM, Top Glove and Xinyi Energy Smart.

The MOUs were signed by XMUM President Prof. Wang Ruifang and representatives of the respective institutions. “The internship and industrial training opportunities offered by these industry-leading companies would be invaluable to our students, helping them apply theory to practice, gain first-hand experience in the relevant industry, and improve their competitiveness in the job market,” said Prof. Wang.

“Close cooperation with our industry partners will enable us to tailor our academic programme to the everchanging industry demands. Looking ahead, we are keen to explore in-depth collaboration with our partner companies in a broader range of areas, such as research and innovation, technology application, business management,” added Prof. Wang.

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Representatives of XMUM & leading industry partners taking group photo with students

“Our collaboration with XMUM in terms of internship started in 2017 and we recruited 20 top students that year. They performed very very well,” said Mr Yee Wing Peng, Country Managing Partner of Deloitte Malaysia.

According to Mr. Yee, Deloitte’s internship programme with XMUM is the first of its kind in Malaysia. After a stringent selection process, the chosen students are granted opportunity to work as interns at Deloitte Malaysia starting from year one, and would come back to Deloitte during semester breaks throughout their undergraduate study. It not only allows them to gain first-hand industry experience and employment competitiveness, but also helps them to make more informed career choices when they graduate. This internship programme received a surprisingly warm response in 2018 thanks to its success in the previous year.

Mr. Yee also expressed great willingness to take more XMUM students: “We will open up our Penang office, and if more students are interested, we can move forward and let them do the internship in Johor Bahru, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and so on.” Among XMUM students of the 2017 Deloitte internship programme, one will officially join Deloitte Malaysia in 2019, while another has been offered a position at Deloitte Shanghai.

The other five enterprises expressed their strong willingness to collaborate with XMUM as well. Both Topglove - the world’s largest manufacturer of gloves, and Xinyi Energy Smart - one of the largest high-quality float glass manufacturers in Malaysia, said they are glad to offer internship and employment positions to XMUM students and establish closer ties with the university, while Infopro, a world-leading IT service provider for banking industry, is keenly looking forward to a long-term cooperation. MTCM Hub and Mythmedix TCM - both already have accepted many XMUM students as interns - said they would like to invite more XMUM students from Traditional Chinese Medicine Programme to join their internship programmes and help them enhance their practical skills. 
The university has always put great emphasis on forging constructive relationship with industry partners. XMUM’s Career Service Office is dedicated to make XMUM students more prepared for the future job market and provides professional guidance on improving their employability. The pioneer batch of XMUM graduates will complete their study by January 2019. Their convocation is expected to be held in April 2019.