Internships are a great way to kick-start your career while you are still in college. Being a student is the best part of one’s life. It is because when you are a student, there is no limit to learning. Being in your graduation years, you have the most potential to develop yourself and your skills as a person and a professional. Though you might be familiar with the advantages of doing an internship, which mainly includes gaining professional work experience, making contacts, strengthening your profile etc, there is still more to it.
Keeping aside the professional benefits that you get to highlight your profile, doing an internship is capable of answering a number of questions related to your life. Here is how it helps:
1. Figuring out your career interests
When you undergo an internship, you experience how things work in an office culture. When you work in a specific job role, you apply your skills and knowledge to discover your potential. Suppose you study mechanical engineering but do you actually love to work with machines. Or you study Computer Science but are you genuinely interested in working on making software almost every day. How do you know?
Internships may not help you to figure out that what you want to do, but it will definitely help you to find what you don’t want to!
2. Diversifying your skills
When you join a firm as an intern, you commit to working sincerely. But as you are still a student, you remain more oriented towards learning. A single internship may require you to learn a software or manage a team or even communicate formally with clients. When you successfully complete an internship, imagine how many small things you can learn like business etiquettes, e-mail communication, virtual meeting software etc that might help you in the future in some way or other.
Internships introduce you to several skills, platforms, and software, making you smart and knowledgeable.
3. Trying, failing and learning
As it is said, “Practice makes a man perfect.” If you know the right method to perform a task, you ought to know the wrong methods too. This is how you bring perfection to your work as well as teach others the same. For this you need to try, you need to fail, learn the wrong methods, avoid them next time and succeed. The earlier you start trying, the more are your chances to learn and succeed over time. Internships are the best way to start learning right away.
Through internships, you get several new opportunities every day to try, discover your weakness, know your strengths and apply them .
4. Discovering new places
Semester breaks are the most awaited events of the college times. It is the time that you might want to plan a trip to a new city. What could be more exciting than finding an internship in a new city? You can work through the day as an intern and explore places on the weekends. Besides, the stipend that you receive may help you to support yourself for that time.
Applying for internships at different places gives you opportunities to live, explore and experience completely different places.
5. Increasing your productivity
Internships are the best method to make the most out of your spare time during vacation. It is a break from the perpetual state of life to one that is different and professional experience driven. Pushing your limits enables your mind to function at it’s best, hence improving your potential. The more you explore a field, the more you discover and so you develop yourself.
Internships help you to take up new challenges, apply your creativity to solve problems and be more productive in what you do.
The best utilization that a semester break can be put to is doing an internship.
It helps you to learn, explore, discover, fail, succeed and much more which eventually helps you in your career.
The earlier you begin, the more you know.
Keep exploring and never stop learning!
How to find an internship?
Internships play a very important role in shaping one’s career. It is the best way to nurture your talent and gain professional work experience. The amazing part is, it can help you to gain work experience that too when you are just a college student.
- Send CVs directly to the companies: The first method of finding an internship is by sending your CVs directly to the companies. For that, you need to sit down, do some research and jot the list of all relevant companies that might be of your interest. Then, you need to mail your CVs to the recruiting officer, along with a well-written cover letter. Through this way, you can find an internship in the company that you want.
- Training and Placement Cell of your college: The second method of finding an internship is through the training and placement cell of your university. Many colleges do not provide internship opportunities because students simply don’t ask for them. As the training and placement office is responsible for the placement related activities. of your college, it can also help you to land an internship by inviting the companies to hire interns at your university.
- Internship Platforms: The third method of finding an internship is through the internship platforms like LinkedIn, LetsIntern and Internshala. Such platforms have a number of opportunities that too in a variety of fields. You need to apply at maximum opportunities but make sure that you have relevant skills and a crisp CV.
Internships are for learning and gaining more experience. For that, you don’t have to be an expert in your field. You just need to have an intense urge to learn, and you are good to go!
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