Why Intern?

Internships can be the key to success. Now's the time to find one by Anne Jean-PaulThe beginning of the school semester, means that now is the time to look for and to obtain internships. Having an internship can help you prepare for the real world, career wise. A New York Times article discusses the benefits of getting an internship to prepare for the real world. An online entry-level job site says, “83 percent of college seniors graduated without a job this spring. Even when these young people finally do get jobs, the positions are often part time, low wage or not related to their career interests.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/opinion/is-your-student-prepared-for-life.html?_r=0)These days, colleges are not really proactive in helping students to plan for their future careers. With the help of an internship, a student will be ready to conquer their career field. This will then lead to the student scoring a good job after graduation. Jones Mariss, an assistant director and staff at the internship department (http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/psm/internships.cfm) at CCNY says “At the beginning of the semester, many students come into the office looking for resources on how to obtain an internship. We do our best here at the internship department to serve each and every student.”An internship can be considered as an education in career training. Bethany Santos, a student at CCNY believes that internships are very beneficial. “I have an internship working at a high school, as an assistant teacher. This internship is perfect because I actually want to be a teacher, once I receive my bachelor’s degree.” Santos- 22, is in her third year at CCNY and plans to keep her internship till she graduates. “I love my job working as an assistant teacher and I don’t see myself doing anything else. Thank God for this internship.”With an internship, you learn the steps needed to be taken in order to receive a good paying job. Without experience in whatever field you are studying, you more than likely would not be able to find a decent job. Your chances of receiving a job after working at an internship site will be higher, than if you did not have an internship to start with. A great way to get students more involved in obtaining internships, would be to make it mandatory in their curriculum to obtain one. It should be mandatory for every student to have at least one internship during their college career, which will benefit them in the future.Students with an internship can more than likely say that they have learned what they want, and what they do not want in their career field. If interested in finding an internship, many sites such as Idealist.org (http://www.idealist.org/) or Fastweb.com (http://www.fastweb.com/) are there to help. In order to score a great internship you must also have a great resume. There are many websites that can help fix your resume if you search on any search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc). On CCNY’s campus you can go to the Career Center (http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/careercenter/) for help with your resume. Having an internship fills up the gap from the college world to the work world. A solid internship, is the best form of career training. With an internship, students will progress further in their education and career.