Although doing an internship isn’t necessary, it certainly helps in adding more depth and perspective to your profile, and otherwise also it helps you understand how the world works. Here are a few things you should know about internships.
What are internships?
An internship is the position of a student or trainee who works in an organization, sometimes without pay, in order to gain work experience. You are not necessarily doing any work of intellectual importance. Just gaining work experience. It could be anything from working as a waiter, content writer or even something technical like web development. Internships can teach a you a lot about work ethics, culture, discipline, and punctuality along with giving you a chance to explore your interests.
High school, though sometimes a struggle to get through, is the perfect time for a student to gain some interning experience in the field they think they like. Having work experience before going to college never hurts; in fact, colleges look out for internships and jobs on a candidate’s resume and often give them priority while admission.
Internships are meant for those with minimal experience in a line of work, because the people who opt for internships are usually high school students or undergraduates, who want hands - on experience.
The work assigned to interns, no matter the milieu and nature of the work, is quite similar to that of an entry - level worker. For the duration of the internship, candidates may work with customers, employees, other interns, etc. and they are accountable to a supervisor or manager.
Why are internships significant?
Many college graduates struggle to boost their careers initially because they lack basic work experience. But this isn’t just because of internships. A lot of other factors come into play here. Also, you do have options of doing internships or part-time jobs while pursuing your degree.
A great deal of students now start college without any job experience. A study conducted by a reputed newspaper in the US asserts that the number of teenagers who have some job in high school has declined from around 40% in 1990 to just 20% today.
The reason for this is because students are busy devoting time to other extracurricular pursuits such as playing sports, performing arts, etc. which are equally important or profile development.
Another research said that students who’re employed in high school or college learn to allocate their time more efficiently while multi-tasking. They also learn about workplace responsibilities and norms and are determined to study harder in their classes to achieve a desired career goal. An internship also helps you get a generalised idea of how an office works. It is also a great way to earn money to help pay for your tuition fee.
Having the experience of an internship increases your chances of getting a job. This is because employers look for someone who is familiar with a work environment.
Meaningful work experience is of most help to those in science and engineering fields. This is because having practical experience in science or engineering is always preferable.
Not only science candidates, but students of social sciences, arts, humanities and business are also more likely to have a commendable job waiting for them after graduation.
As an intern, you aren’t expected to know much. You have a clean slate professionally and this helps in grasping a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time.
Internships are also a great way to establish networks and make connections with people.
Therefore, I would suggest that if you get the opportunity to do an internship, then you must go for it. If not, its not the end of the world. I’m sure your application is strong even without it.
