The results of a survey on last year’s graduates reveal that 94.33% of them are satisfied with the education they received at TKU. In terms of their career planning, one third of them would apply for grad schools in Taiwan. These figures are based on the analyses conducted by the Career Planning and Placement Section who distributed a questionnaire on line. The responding rate was 90%.

The questionnaire was designed by Taiwan Normal University, who in turn was contracted by the Ministry of Education to build a data base to keep on tap of the career development of Taiwan’s college graduates. Apart from the immediate graduating students, alumni that have graduated over 1, 3, 5 and 10 years will be traced and tracked of their development. Questions in the survey elicit information regarding 1) graduates’ learning attitude, motivation and effectiveness during their studies, 2) their opinion of their alma mater, and 3) career planning and development.

In the first category, more than half of the respondents went to cram schools for passing exams during their studies. 83.19% of the respondents worked during college, one third of the respondents took loans out to complete studies. In the second category, 94.33% of the respondents found TKU as a whole either very satisfactory or satisfactory. 89.74% of respondents were pleased with their department, whereas 88.07% of them were happy with their professors, and 84.1% of them were contend with their individual program. 90.76% of the respondents will recommend TKU as a good place to study. In the third category, one third of the respondents are preparing for further studies at Taiwan’s graduate schools. 92.27% of the respondents intend to pursuit a higher degree such as a Master’s. Most of the respondents plan to study Business and Management because of market demands. TKU takes these results very seriously and will conduct further analyses in order to gauge students, needs more accurately.

MOE will continue to conduct such a survey on this year’s graduating students, results of which will be made public in October. However, TKU would like to step one head of MOE by having the survey done earlier so that analyses could be produced as early as July. To meet that, most departments are already under way with compiling e-mail addresses and distributing on-line questionnaire. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )