The Importance Of Internships For College Students

Both unpaid andpaid internships for college students provide a valuable opportunity

to gain work experience in a student's chosen field before graduation. Completing an internship can help a student decide if a particular career is actually the right fit for them, and through an internship, students can establish contacts or even earn college credit while working in a part-time, temporary position. Additionally, in a competitive job market, internships for college students give recent graduates an edge over other potential candidates who do not have any relevant work experience.

Employers like to hire interns because they generally work for little or no pay and are willing to complete lower-level tasks that seem mundane to full-time employees. When searching for full-time employees, many employers prefer to hire former interns who worked well with their company and will require little additional training to start a job. Employers sometimes even offer full-time jobs to their successful interns, effective after graduation.

Tips for Finding Internships for College Students:

Determine what your career goals are for the future, and look for an internship that will help you achieve them.

The internship most relevant to what you want to do may not be paid or with a large and well-known company, but it's important to consider the long-term benefits. An internship with a smaller organization that offers you more responsibility can sometimes look better to a prospective employer than one with a large corporation where your main tasks were to make coffee and answer the phones.

Approach employers rather than waiting for them to find your resume. If you simply apply to internships posted online, you're going to be competing with a lot of other students for the position. It may be more productive to find a company you'd like to work for, and contact someone in the department that interests you, telling them that you'd like the opportunity to learn more about them.

Complete multiple internships. An internship will help to build up your resume, so after completing one, consider doing another. The second internship may be easier to find because you already have experience.

What about Money?

Many internships are unpaid and interns instead receive college credit toward their degree. But there are also many paid internships available, though this heavily depends on the intern site itself, for example, nonprofit organizations rarely have the funds to pay interns. On the other hand, a business major interning with a wealthy bank may be more likely to receive monetary compensation.

When Should You Intern?

Traditionally, college students chose to complete internships during the summer or waited until the final year of school. But often, either for financial reasons or because they want to make time to complete multiple internships, many students now choose to intern younger and during the fall or spring semesters while taking a full course load.

Without internship experience, college students rarely have useful information to put on a resume. Employers prefer to see work experience in a relevant field as opposed to part-time work in an unrelated area. These days, since unemployment rates are high among recent college graduates, many alumni who cannot find full-time work are accepting unpaid internships to gain additional work experience. But both unpaid and paid internships for college students have become essential in order to enter into a career after graduation.

by: Emily Sismour

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