Internship for College Students : Plan your Internship for a bright career

 

 

 

When any person whether high school student, college student or post graduate student gets an opportunity to learn practical aspects of professional work life, it is known as “Internship”.  It is very different from what we learn in classroom. During Internship, students are given a chance to showcase their skill, talent and value to employer.  It helps them to develop their personal and professional network. Most importantly it helps students to learn practical aspect of their study. It gives an opportunity to apply the theoretical experience.

In internship, active contribution in task is most important. Achieving the target or completing the task is appreciable. Students learn about terms like customer, client, market, business, industry, competition etc. It is a real-world experience.

Types of Internship:

PAID INTERNSHIP

Here a student will get money to work as an intern with the company. It exists in private sector, in large organization that has money to pay to students or fresher for internship.  It can be received as stipend or hourly wage, sometime as salary. It depends on the industry sector a student is interested in. There is high competition for paid internship now-a-days. But with paid Internships a company will expect more from students, like a paid job. Responsibilities will be more.  In that case a student should treat each application as “Job Application”.  The duration is for few months so companies will accept only those students who can show actual dedication to the work.

UNPAID INTERNSHIP

This is everywhere. It is an exchange of service between the intern and the organization. Here the intern will not receive any money for their contribution or duty towards the organization. Outside India this type of Internship is considered as illegal. It is often taken as exploitative.  But there are no laws that cover interns in India. Still ‘The Industrial Employment (Standing orders) Act, 1946’ have mentioned about apprentices but applies only to industrial establishments. The interns aren’t even entitled to get minimum wages.  Few companies cover travel expenses and lunch expenses.

 

SUMMER INTERNSHIP

It is like an X-factor in CV for students. Instead of spending the summer vacation in lazy way, it can be utilized by doing internship.  It is a great chance to bag some good work experience. Some time many employers see this as an interview or a trial period. If the intern gets fit in their company they might hire him/her in future. Hence it helps the interns to get job in future.

 

Finding Internship

For this a student has to choose a particular industry or sector of their choice. After that he/she can access the relevant information regarding the company. Then the student can directly approach them with CV or send them e-mail. It is very important to coordinate with the person of the company who provides internship. It is also important to check the background of the company before approaching them.

 

 

Benefit of Internship:

It will give valuable work experience.  This will teach students to dedicate their skills in profession. It helps to develop commercial awareness about the industry, how to organize time and solve problems can be experienced during this period.

An internship may not be the first choice of a graduate as students will want to pursue post graduation. It is a perfect way to test a career. For anyone who is not sure about career choices it will help to decide what steps to take forward. For those who want to travel the world can go for international internship. It is also helpful for those who want to try out industries they are interested in.

But at the end, it is up to the students what they want from internship. Whether paid or unpaid he/she have to make the best decision keeping the priorities in mind. Analyze long and short term benefits before choosing and this will be the first step towards Profession.