With summer approaching, many students are searching for internships to stay productive. Internships and externships give students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the field they are studying in school, they also have the opportunity to earn compensation for their work.
Internships and externships are an experience that all college students should go through. Students have a great opportunity to gain key work skills that will help them possibly gain employment when they graduate.
According to Evan Kilgore, a writer for the College of District, “During college, immersive internships in your field of study are essential to successful outcomes after graduation. Classroom environments may involve you with discussion, debate, peer interaction, and shared learning experiences,”(2022).
School can only teach students so much through books, students must have the opportunity to get out and apply their knowledge. Also, depending on the internship students may learn whether or not they want to change their career path or not.
Because going into college changing majors is not uncommon at all, it is actually very common, according to ABC, “About 80 percent of college students change majors at least once.” It is okay for students to decide they are not interested in a specific career anymore. That is part of the maturing process, typically freshman and sophomore students are going through that transition from high school and are continuing to figure out who they are. Once students become seniors and juniors is when they should have an idea of what they want to do in their life.
To continue, internships and externships lead to opportunities down the road for jobs. One of the most important parts of an internship is being a hard worker and making your face known in the business.
Making a good impression as a young student lets employers know once you graduate they need to be in contact with you. And even if they cannot hire you, that does not mean that they can’t refer you to another employer. To proceed, Kilgore also stated, “The analysis also found that 72.2% percent of college graduates with internship experience received a job offer in contrast to only 36.5% for those who did not complete one.”
This is just an added incentive to complete an internship. The end goal of going to college is to get a job that pays well, and this is a step that can put you in the right direction.
To add, the biggest takeaway from completing an internship or externship is understanding your competition. Once students graduate high school, they enter the world of competition when it comes to the workforce.
Employers are constantly looking for their next great employee to help them put money in their pockets. Students are being out in direct competition with their peers for similar jobs and do not even realize it.
So students having the ability to see their competition up close and personal can give them an advantage, this will let them know what they need to improve on and where they stand. Learning from others allows students to improve because no one is a finished product there is always room for improvement. These are just the few of many benefits of an internship and externships.