Should You Do An Internship During the Semester?
Saturday, November 26, 2011
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Being a college student can be more difficult than having a full-time job. Between tests, papers, boyfriends/girlfriends, volunteering, extracurriculars, and doing whatever else you do, you’re constantly going full speed ahead 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But there’s one other commitment you might want to consider throwing into the mix: an internship.
Though you might think an internship is just for the summertime, more and more students are opting to take one on during the academic year. But should you jump on the semester internship bandwagon? We talked with students, career counselors, and employers to put together a guide to help you decide if it’s worth adding an internship into next semester’s Google calendar.
What does your current resume look like?
Is that beautiful piece of paper dotted from top to bottom with all of your marvelous work-related experiences? Or do you still have “babysitting” listed under previous work experience?
Unless you are applying for a position as a full-time au pair, listing babysitting on your resume probably won’t help you nab that job or summer internship.
This is when it may be a good idea to consider applying for a semester internship.
“If you don’t have any experience on your resume, it’s a good idea to start building it with local companies,” said Lauren Berger, the CEO of InternQueen.com.
Students with previous internship experience have a higher success rate at finding a job, and there are only so many summers left in college. Plus, internships during the semester could be easier to snag.
“Summer internships are definitely the most popular,” Berger said. “So when it comes to the fall and spring there aren’t as many candidates.”
According to the student survey of 2010 conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, about 42 percent of seniors who had previous internship experience received at least one job offer compared to the 30 percent of seniors that received a job offer without any internship experience. So if your resume needs beefing up, during the semester could be the time to do it.
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About the Author
Biography
Nicole is a senior at the University of Iowa majoring in journalism and Spanish. A native of the Chicago suburbs, she is an editor for the metro section at the Daily Iowan and writes Monday night recaps of her favorite TV show (and guilty pleasure) 'Gossip Girl' on Hollywoodlife.com. She spent this last summer in New York City interning at Hollywoodlife.com and a New York-based lifestyle and travel magazine, the Resident. She's exclusively interviewed several celebrities such as Bethenny Frankel, Margaret Cho, Joel Madden & Cheryl Burke. After graduation Nicole plans on returning to NYC and pursuing her career in journalism. In her free time she enjoys doing yoga, reading, and spending time with family and friends.
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Comments
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I generally agree that doing internships during the school year makes you more competitive for jobs but I would put as a caveat that you may not be the best employee during the school year. Its really tough to be an enthused and ready-to-go worker when a) you just pulled an all-nighter b)you have 500 pages of reading to do this week, but you can't take off of work because of an important conference c)your sorority just HAS to have you show up early for initiation.
Keeping up with homework and extracurrics is important, but if you're not actually performing well while at your internship, its a waste of your time. Bosses don't give good references to interns who fall asleep at their desks because they're so over-extended.
Doing internship during a semester can be very exhausting, so you should be very careful when you decide to take one. You should think twice whether you manage to work and learn in the same time
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My trouble is that I go to school in Arcata, Calif., which as you probably wouldn't know, is in the middle of nowhere tucked behind some redwood trees. Every place that I want to and should be interning at is 3,000 miles away in the Big Apple. Is there a way I can do an internship during the semester without having to transfer schools? Out-of-state tuition would be way too expensive for me.
I agree that internships during the school year are definitely worth it--and doable. I took 17 credits last semester, had a part-time job, was involved in many extracurriculars, partied every weekend (and some weekdays), got a 4.0, and had a virtual writing internship with College Lifestyles(TM).
Great advice. As a senior in at Bentley University, I completely agree that all college students should attempt to get an internship during the semester. I specifically mention and linked to this article in a recent blog post I wrote for StudentAdvisor.com about the The 10 Things I Wish I Had Known Freshman Year of College: http://bit.ly/fb7C16
would love to know what any HerCampus users would tell their 18-year-old self if they could...
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