The Impact of Internships on Graduate Employability

Beyond getting an insider’s look at their future job, interns and apprentices also gain valuable industry connections they can use to land a job upon graduation.

Internship is a six to eight weeks working experience in any organization. The purpose behind doing an internship is to get familiar with a professional working environment. Often students do internships during there vacations so as to gain experience in their field of interest. Students studying engineering, computer science, textiles or business management; they are required to perform at least an internship so as to receive degree from their respective institutions. The purpose of writing this essay is to share my wonderful working experience as an internee at Spyglass Winery. I loved every minute of it as I discovered several new skills and came across with some interesting job opportunities. This statistical analysis (www.fasttrackinternships.com) shows the rate of full time job placements according to the number of internships completed.

An internship can also heighten the awareness of community issues, motivates to create opportunities, embrace new ideas, and give direction to positive change. A successful internship can provide valuable information in making decisions about the direction of future studies or employment. An internship is an opportunity to not only use and develop industry-related knowledge and skills, but also to enhance some of the skills that are transferable to any professional work setting. For some people, the internship is the first introduction to the world of work. No matter where the skills and understanding of professionalism lie, internship is a chance to develop them even further.

Students receive on-the-job experience prior to graduation, and the internship assists them in obtaining permanent employment. Facilities benefit from the opportunity to participate in and improve the formal education process. Quite often, students who complete professional practice experiences are later employed by the facility at which they completed the internship.

In Unpaid Interns, Complicit Colleges, Ross Perlin argues internships that do not pay the student is more about institutions helping businesses find free work instead of helping the student find their best openings and by making them necessities in many colleges, students must participate in giving their fit for free to finish their education. [3] Perlin's intelligence of the free internship, he is able to criticize the way in which colleges shove internships that do not pay and cause the shortcoming of them to fall on the students. [4] Perlin drives the idea of injustice to the student in order to show the viewer what is really going on, in companies using free interns. [5] Unpaid Interns, Complicit Colleges covers Perlin’s analysis on how

He states, “Three-quarters of the 10 million students enrolled in America’s four-year colleges and universities will work as interns at least once before graduating … Between one-third and half will get no compensation for their efforts” (499 - 500). This evidence is relevant since it clearly supports the author’s claim that colleges allow unpaid internship. This may not necessarily imply that the colleges are bad, but this clearly shows the high occurrence of such cases. It shows the high number of students who do not get paid while working as interns. The information was taken from established research institutes, therefore the evidence is credible. The College Employment Research Institute conducts an annual survey of national employers seeking their intentions for hiring new college graduates ("College Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University"), while the Intern Bridge is the nation’s premier college recruiting, consulting and research firm (http://www.internbridge.com/). However, there was no information about the date when the statistic was taken or when the study was performed, and this made the evidence less sufficient. The evidence will be more sufficient if the date was mentioned and if it was current. Again, this evidence is addressed to students to present them with details about unpaid internship and be cautious when considering internship in their

Internship is a period of work experience offered by an employer to give people (usually college students and graduates) exposure to the working environment. It gives them an opportunity to get first-hand experience. The growing need for practical learning led to the emergence of internship. It helps to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience. Internships in any form- paid, unpaid or co-operative learning has now become a standard practice for college students. It has

The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;

In a business world, nowadays it isn’t just about whom you know, or what you know, experience is almost as valuable as education. It appears that almost all credibility comes from how long one has been in a particular field. Consider this, would you rather see a heart surgeon who just finished his or her residency, or a surgeon who has been practicing for many years? Almost always, experience is more enticing. This resulting in this epidemic that has college students and graduates hungry for experience, even willing to work for free, or in other words – internship. A compelling article published in a 2006 New York Times magazine, - “TAKE THIS INTERNSHIP AND SHOVE IT”, Anya Kamenetz uses ethos, pathos, and logos to lay out a thorough review of whether or not unpaid vs. paid internships are beneficial, not only for pre-graduate college students, but also for the economy as a whole.

This study will use a quantitative research method in order to evaluate the advisor’s perspectives regarding global internship programs. There are three major research methods, all of which have strengths and weaknesses. For example, a mixed research method comprises both qualitative and quantitative and demonstrates useful synergy between the two methods (Shelton, Smith, & Mort, 2014). Conversely thinking, it can be overwhelming and time consuming for a novice researcher to learn those two methodologies and incorporate them together. A qualitative research method is used to dig deeper than the statistical data generated by a quantitative research method. It utilizes techniques, such as focus group, interview, and observation and collect the data that is generated by image, video, and audio (Shelton et al, 2014).

Some data suggest that Internships are effective for nonprofit hiring – perhaps because applicants (say, biochemistry majors) may have a “doing good” craving they feel can be better satisfied with the Sierra Club than with Perdue Chicken, Inc. However, d-u-u-h, Perdue can pay more for internships than a bunch of tree-huggers.

In contrast to Koo and Hergert, I also looked at articles by Brown and Parent to compare the negative aspects to the positive. Deborah Brown discusses the relationship between and labor and employment. She found that some jobs believe that interns are different from full time employees so they are “not entitled to wage or overtime compensations” (Brown, 2014). The objective of Mike Parent’s article is to understand how there is an ongoing imbalance of internships and the number of workers for each one. He points out that the imbalance begins with the application process. He researched show that there was “enough positions for eighty-one percent of applicants, but only about two and half percent of them were accredited” (Parent, 2016). He found that the limited number of workers influenced the two main themes, stress and system issues.

Our present day job market has seen a marked increase in competition among college graduates. Over the past 40 years, we have seen a 20 percent increase in bachelor’s degrees in citizens over the age of 25 (“Fast Facts” 1). This increase in degree holders has exacerbated the competition of our job markets and has forced workers to seek a further competitive edge. According to an annual survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, an astonishing 95 percent of employers said relevant work experience is a major aspect in hiring decisions, and approximately half of the surveyed employers wanted the experience to come from internships (Hansen 1). Hence, many college students find themselves taking unpaid internships as resume boosters. Although these internship experiences are significant in providing college students with practical skills, their ethicality is highly questionable. Unpaid internships exploit interns, widen socioeconomic disparity, and offer little future benefit to interns. This paper will begin by framing the problem and highlighting the importance of this phenomenon. Following that, the multiple perspectives on this issue will be discussed and an analysis of the pros and cons of unpaid internships will unravel that unpaid internships are inherently flawed. Lastly, the paper will acknowledge that completely abolishing unpaid internships is an

Typically, internships are professional experiences that students participate in to gain professional skills and experiences. In this particular experience at Accounting Firm X I did in fact gain substantial professional skill while participating in new and challenging experiences. Internships allow in- class material to come to life in a practical manner. My internship did do this but not in a way that I had planned.

I did my internship for ten weeks at Harman Connected Services which is a sub-unit of Harman International. Harman is one of the top companies in automotive arena with very less rivalry. I worked as a Business-Unit HR for the automotive partition and extended my knowledge about how employees are