Before entering the scary world of real, adult careers, most college students look to pursue internship opportunities that will allow them to not only gain much-needed experience in their designated field but to also slowly introduce them into the real world. Internships have been portrayed in the media as positions that are solely created so that a CEO or other executive has someone to boss around and request insanely perfected coffee orders from.
However, in real life, internships tend to be more like jobs and not too many interns accept the conditions of solely being a coffee-runner. Different companies offer different internship opportunities that range from competitive, paid programs to traditional internships that may not be paid. Realistically, though there are two types of internships that each position would fall under. The good internship, and the bad one.
A good internship is typically paid, as it shows that the employer and company actually value your work and isn’t content with having you work tireless hours for just some “experience”. Good internships will also provide the intern with some sort of mentor who will be there to continually support the growth and professional development of the intern. One of the most decisive factors when categorizing an internship as being a good one is that at good internships, the intern will leave with newly acquired skills and real experience that they could then utilize in their future career endeavors.
A bad internship program is often one where interns are seen as disposable young people who don’t have much to contribute. Companies that treat their interns as if they are meaningless are not very tactful and interns tend to leave those programs feeling possibly even more nervous about entering the workforce than before. Likewise, there are still internships that make their interns wash dishes and grab a coffee, which is okay to some extent, but internships that have you doing this on a daily basis may not be worth your time and effort.