Are internships necessary?
I had a short internship that is now a job for me. It was great for networking, but the point is to get experience so you can get a real job. Worked for me, but you already have a job. It was really hard to get one and most of them seem to be unpaid, which I thought was unacceptable. Some friends have done unpaid internships and to me they seemed like menial slave labor. I volunteer and do the exact same thing, but I have more freedom. An intern can’t take the day off, a volunteer can. However, they do let you see the inside of a company/organization/etc. which gives you insight into future careers even if you are just slave labor. I know I probably won’t work in non-profit or academia because of my experiences.
Good experience is necessary. “Internships” not only aren’t a necessary source of good experience, they’re inferior (in my opinion) to regular jobs that can impart significant experience and demand significant responsibility. The problem is that it is pretty tough for someone who has yet to graduate to find a regular job that meets that requirement, whereas most internships are designed to be constructive for a resume. If you’ve got such a job, you’re ahead.
An internship is essentially just a job. Like all jobs, it provides training, experience, and opportunities. So, if you already have a job, the question you should be asking yourself is whether the internships that the school is offering are better overall than the job you already have. If your current job is paid and the school’s internships aren’t, that’s a big vote against the internships, but it’s not necessarily the only factor. I would also consider the relevance of the job/internship to your future career, and the types of opportunities that the job/internship provides access to.
As someone who had a real job rather than going for internships, I’d actually say it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to at least try out for them. When I finally decided to test the waters outside of my place of work, I realized that I really don’t know how to get a job — I just know how to have a job. Which means to this day I’m still not certain whether I’m any good at writing up CVs, being in interviews, etc. Right now I’m okay because I have a network of people who know I’m good at what I do, so I go from “having” one job to “having” another, but I really wonder, if I ever decided to change industries and actually had to sell myself to strangers for a position, would I stand a chance at all? I’m not a follower of the 7 habits at all, but some of the recommendations do come to mind from time to time. In this case, I think the recommendation “Sharpen the saw” is apt. You should try out for internships, even unpaid ones, even if you have no intention of taking them (that’s the beautiful
No. What would really help – work for two years and then go to B-school, preferably at a top ten or twenty school. Your first job is your internship, and it pays better. Your B-school degree is your ticket into higher opportunity. Aside from being smart and getting good grades, your two most important ins to a good job are showing creativity and aggression, not necessarily in that order.
