Asian Journal of Education and Training

Fashion design education has grown by leaps and bounds across world in recent years. It aims to prepare students with knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) to work in fashion industry and be employable. To empower students with much needed KSA, fashion design programs have industrial internship as a mandatory requirement that enables students to receive experiential training within the industry for a specific period. Industry internship is an opportunity to gain first- hand experience about various activities and operations conducted in an organization to manufacture products. This research investigates the perceptions of fashion design students regarding their expectations and experiences from an industrial internship using a mixed method approach. Structured questionnaires and semi structured interview schedule is used to gather data. Sample size for questionnaire was 66 and later in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 students. The findings of this research provide rich insight on internship expectations and experiences that can help educational institutions and fashion industry to work collaboratively in order to strengthen the internship program and maximize the benefits.