Internships are not a waste of your time!

I came across an entry to a blog I frequent [freemoneyfinance.com] writing about how internships are great. Here is wht he had to say about internships:

1. They give you practical experience in a field, something most college graduates don’t have.
2. They allow you to rack up real-world accomplishments — perfect fodder for your resume.
3. They give you a built-in set of references.
4. They might just get you a job offer from the firm you worked for as an intern.
5. They can show you whether or not this line of work is to your liking.

My experience

I’ve personally have been on 4 separate internships. Some may think that is a little extreme but I have a really good reason doing so! First of all when I was at my undergraduate school at University of the Pacific our engineering curiculum required us to take two internships totaling a full year. I did both of mine at Cisco Systems as a hardware test engineer and it was good fun and practical. I met some great people there that I still speak and have fun with. The third one I went on is at Sandia national labs where I went before starting my master’s program at Stanford. And lastly I worked this last summer at National Semiconductor where I will most likely be working full time when I graduate here in the next few weeks.

All my internships were very interesting and I had learned a ton of stuff. It also helped me narrow down which field of electrical engineering I wanted to go into. Looking at the list above I’ve managed to acquire all 5 of the benefits. It’s really different learning something by the text and actually applying that knowledge. It also benefits because it reenforces your learning back in the classroom when yuo come back which amplifies your overall learning expereince.

You may be tempted to take the whole summer off or to finish school in time, but the benefit for having an internship pays off. A lot of internships will pay you to work (but be warned that some professions will not, but in engineering it is usually paid) so it is also a smart way to start paying off any accruing student loans! If the opportunity is there for you, take it and run!

You can read the original article here.