Clustering Student Internship Placement Using Wards Hierarchical Method

Abstract

The internship program has been one of the graduation requirements in most higher education institutions. It enables students to undergo a period of training with any organization to acquire skills which cannot be learned in the classroom. The process of acquiring and selecting the internship placement is very crucial to achieving the goals and outcomes of internship program. The place of internship selected by the students is usually situated all over the country. However, the choice of placement made by the student depends on locality of their hometown or a place which can offer high internship job vacancy is not well described. Thus, this study aims to cluster the area of preference by the Mathematics students to do their practical training using Wards Hierarchical Clustering. It was found that the preference area of internship placement chosen by the Mathematics students from the university located in Kelantan state can be clustered into high internship area (Kelantan) followed by medium internship placement area (Selangor, Terengganu, Johor and Perak). Meanwhile, Pulau Pinang, Pahang, Kedah, Kuala Lumpur, Perlis, Putrajaya, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Sabah were clustered as low internship placement area. The findings of the research can provide rich insights for the internship management in planning the networking with industry by concentrating on the choice of student’s internship placement.