An internship is a system of on-the-job training for white-collar and professional careers. Internships for professional careers are similar to apprenticeships for trade and vocational jobs. It is a wonderful and effective way to connect your academic experience with the professional work arena. It allows you to gain valuable exposure to the workplace, provides the opportunity for skill development, and gives you a competitive edge in the job search. Although interns are typically college or university students, they can also be high school students or post-graduate adults. On occasion, they are middle school or even elementary students.
An internship is an opportunity for a student to gain practice in a real world setting under the guidance of a knowledgeable, experienced, and successful supervisor. The internship can be established in any setting in which information is gathered, stored, managed, retrieved, and disseminated.
Normally, the internship is completed by the student for the purpose of earning academic credit only. In some cases, however, as long as the requirements for academic credit are established as a portion of the overall internship experience, students may receive payment for their work. Internship provides an opportunity for students to utilize their academic classroom experience in a real-world setting. The goal is to help prepare students by emerging them into a career experience and facilitate their transition into the workplace. Each of internship is unique in accord with the students major and his/her educational and professional goals. The student plays an active role in creating learning objectives for the individualized experience.
Internships may be part-time or full-time – typically, they are part-time during the university year and full-time in the summer. They usually last 6-12 weeks, but can be shorter or longer, depending on the company involved. Mostly the students do summer internships of 4-6 weeks.
The two primary types of internships that exist are:
WORK EXPERIENCE INTERNSHIP: Most often this will be in the second or third year of the school period. The placement can be from 2 months to one full school year. During this period, the student is expected to use the things he/she has learned in school and put them into practice. This way the student gains work experience in their field of study. The gained experience will be helpful to finish the final year of study.
RESEARCH INTERNSHIP (GRADUATION) OR DISSERTATION INTERNSHIP: This is mostly done by students who are in their final year. With this kind of internship a student does research for a particular company. The company can have something that they feel like they need to improve, or the student can choose a topic within the company themselves. The results of the research study will be put in a report and often will have to be presented. Due to strict labor laws, European internships are mostly unpaid, although they are still popular among non-Europeans in order to gain international exposure on ones resume and for foreign language improvement.
Another type of internship growing in popularity is the virtual internship, in which the intern works remotely, and is not physically present at the job location. It provides the capacity to attain the same results without the conventional means of being physically present at a job. Usually the internship is conducted via virtual means, such as phone, email, and web communication. Virtual interns generally have the opportunity to work at their own pace.
An internship has many benefits for a student or professionals. Some of them are as follow:
Acquisition of knowledge
Professional experience
Possible financial assistance
Possibility of entering the world of employment
Have an Edge in the Job Market
Decide if this is the Right Career for You
Networking Opportunities
Apply Classroom Knowledge
Gain Confidence
The writer is Undergraduate Student of B.E. (Electrical Engineering), Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering Science and Technology (QUEST), Nawabshah, Sindh, Pakistan. He can be reached at < sial_yasin@yahoo.com>