ACCT-449 INTERNSHIPS
Introduction
Internships are structured work experience that enables one practice actual
working situations in their specialties, or in the chosen fields of endeavors. These are
in most cases time limited and although they may for instance last for from several
weeks to several months but not exceeding one year for children and young people in
care, the time shaped them to define who they are.
They play the role of bridging the gap between theory used in classrooms and the
actual practical assessment of the same, and many benefits are associated with
participation. The aim of this essay is to explore the importance and benefit of
internships as means of getting practical experience or working experience, knowing
which jobs are available or jobs that interest one, getting acquainted with industry
players, updating one’s resume and potential employment opportunities.
Benefits of Internships
1. Gain Practical Experience
Internships, therefore, is considered as some of the valuable approaches through
which student gets to encounter practical exposure in the respective area of his or her
course. Students are allowed to apply the real work scenarios in the professional
organization so as to get engaged in actual work that is called theory assignment
within the class environment. There is a common saying attributed to Ben Franklin
that goes, ‘That is the true saying, learning by doing’, and this is only possible when
one with prior knowledge gets a chance to see how those fixed theories perform in
real life situations. No matter whether one is familiarizing with his expertise in an
experiment with a lab or coding for a software company or dealing with some
marketing schemes for a business acronym ‘internships’ has a ‘feel’ which cannot be
compensated by books.
2. Career Exploration
Internships offers a very significant ‘feed in’ mechanism in which a student
gets an opportunity to explore several careers and fields before venturing into the real
world. Therefore, at least in classroom learning students receive a theoretical base
and at least an idea of further learning progressions while on the other side internships
students gain the real working situation where they can choose what they like or do
not like, what kind of working conditions they prefer, what skills they want to have
and what goals they have.
Internship can be a chance to learn about the practical day to day life of and
possible difficulties that are encountered within a certain field. The direct practical
involvement of organization activity during their internship include project based
activities that assist the inter to gain an insight of the problems involved in positions
in the particular sector. Therefore, during the internships, interns attend meetings and
work at the assigned tasks; Therefore interns are provided with the theoretical
knowledge that can be entirely different from the knowledge gained in college.
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3. Networking Opportunities
Networking is considered to be important while searching for internships since it
helps to improve the quality of internship and prepare the future professions.
Gaining new employees and developing their professional contacts imply field
practitioners, mentors, and trainees and work for the growth at every stage of the
professional development level.
Internships also provides students with unique opportunities and effective ways to
communicate with some of them- successful individuals. Interns get chance to have
or establish a partnership that would be useful or significant in other jobs that they
encounter in the future. They also assure that such professional connections are not
limited to the period of the internship; that is, someday this intern will be offered a job
in the organization. This may occur in the form of talking to such people may for
instance offer them professional advice or even talking to sector players who may be
offering them insights of this sector the networking that comes along with the
internships really help in building a strong foundation for a prosperous career.
4. Skill Development
The second beneficial outcome relates to subjects that may be developed within the
context of interning which are useful skills. Since the interns’ specialization is coded,
they are able to follow specific tools and techniques as these are adopted and
implemented at the practical level, engage with clients, and learn how to approach a
problem as this arises. Similarly, internships acting in the development of skills as it
assist in enhancing the skills that exist within a learner within an actual work
environment. Considering that internships have more practical assignment format, it
is possible that interns do improve in a number of competencies which they can use in
their daily endeavors.
5. Resume Enhancement
Internships remain effective ways of building resumes through gaining
worthwhile work experience and displaying important aspects of the intern’s abilities,
capacity, and preparedness to occupy a particular place in the job market. Using
internships on the resume is mostly important for applicants with little work
experience because internships help them to show a potential employer that they are
interested in the occupation field and can work in this area. They are a valuable
addition to resumes as they present the candidate to employers with the relevant work
experience on the job as per the candidate’s intentions and dreams. Contrary to
academic accomplishment or co-curricular activities, internships equip the intern with
practical experience in a setting that is related to his or her field of study; this enables
him or her to practice his or her knowledge and skills practically. In terms of
internships, specifying pieces of work undertaken and accomplishments made would
best illustrate the candidate’s productivity and impact in any organization. They
demonstrate that the candidate tries to secure experience proactively and will work.
6. Potential for Employment
Internship is one of the many prevailing tools of hiring an individual since it
gives the individual a prime opportunity of getting a full time employment as the
employer gets an opportunity of evaluating the working ability, working attitude and
the culture of a given organization. There are so many organizations that serve as
talent base and it is often the employer’s wish to give full time employment to the
intern as he or she finishes his or her internship.
Several statistics and examples illustrate the trend of internships leading to full-
time employment:
According to Ram Certification National Association of Colleges and
Employers paid interns have more chances to be offered a job as 56% of
interns received offers from their internship supervisors in 2020.
Some famous champions of intern induction include Google, Facebook, and
Microsoft whose internship offers are usually stepping stones to a paying job.
For instance, the Google Engineering Practicum Internship presents students
with an opportunity of working on complex tasks and in most cases, most of
the interns are absorbed by the company once their internship is over.
Various consulting firms like McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company , and
Boston Consulting Group often directly hire their interns. All these firms
embark on internships as a way of evaluating interns, their productivity and
how they align to the organizations culture with most firms rewarding the best
interns with offers to join the company.
Advantages of internships
Familiarity with Company Culture and Processes: As a matter of fact the
are employed by the organization and thus they are in better position to assess
organization culture demand among other things. Make them easily
mobilizable for any positions available in the company and on the view of
redeployment of phases linked to the field, helps to cut drastically training of
new staff.
Established Relationships: Particularly, interning means performing tasks
and thus, watching how people perform tasks and how they interact with other
employees, superiors, peers, or any other working partners. Such relations
could be of great help especially during the search for a fuller position as the
intern may have friends who could forward information about his/her good
conduct in that company.
Proven Performance and Skills: Internship through practice enables the
candidate give a proof to her/his employer of the proficiency of a professional
in the work place. Internship placements this is where the intern has been
hired to work within a certain field as an intern and produces good results
during internship and where the intern has also been involved in doing projects
that relate with the post graduate degree then the intern is in a better position
to compete for the said positions due to the records that one has accumulated.
Employers who give interns opportunities to work also witness the interns
portray their competencies at workplace; the employers are sure that the
interns are bringing the company the prospects of an employee.
Understanding of Company Processes and Systems: Such people have been
trained on how a particular organization functions through the different
systems established within the organization as well as the standard procedures
observed in executing a specific task. Such aspects mentioned makes them
even much productive than an individual joining the firm right from college;
they can start work opening the organization as early as possible since they
have prior exposure to most of the conventionalities and applications of tools,
technologies and techniques used by the business. Hence, intern candidates
can be tailored, to fit the company’s needs and directives, in accordance with
the organizational values of the company, and this makes them to be more
productive than candidates from other firms.
Demonstrated Initiative and Commitment: Such an exercise will provide
the interns with the needed exposure as well as show the organization that they
are willing to work for the organization hence the need to be accorded an
equal opportunity to work for the organization. The employer will be happy to
see someone who looks for experience on his or her own and is willing to
actively contribute to the organization as this is seen as someone who would
be committed to their work and the firm, thus enhancing his or her career
progression within the company.
Challenges of internships
1. Unpaid Internships
One of the other main concerns that interns face is the absence of pay for the
internship; most of the internships do not pay the intern. Internships are helpful
because it helps the one seeking employment, to show their experience while getting
the connections in the working world and most internships are however unpaid
internships hence placing financial burdens on the students. Due to the lack of labor
rights and complexities in the legal systems of most countries, interns are unable to be
paid for their work and thus cannot afford basic daily needs, transport, and other
essential costs… if they cannot earn income from other sources. Furthermore, the
practicing of unpaid interning also means that equity, and access problem is even
worse because in places where there are poor students, they cannot afford to do
unpaid interning and as such, they cannot get a chance to gain experience in their
respective fields and they cannot compete with other rich students from other wealthy
families in the markets.
2. Limited Availability
Some of the issues that interns received include lack of experience in actual
internships as they do not get to intern within their specialty fields. Many students
aim to get an internship in order to have more experience, add a company to their
resume, or just to have an opportunity to work and this is why intern positions are
quite competitive. There are many internships available for some of the finest
specialization that one would want to land in and when ever there is a call for intern
applicants, there will always be many thousands of applicants for an internship.
Additionally, the geographical factors rise as a hindrance for getting an internship
since, for some students, they cannot finance to travel to another city or state in order
to improve their internships, or the organization offering internships might be located
in a specific geographic area. In a way, it has the potential to act as binding in terms
of the internships and work experience of the certain student to; It would likely have a
bias towards black students, Hispanic students, or students from backgrounds other
than the urban area.
3. Balancing Work and Academic Commitments
This limitation suggests contradiction in terms of time whereby, in most cases,
interns are bound by time and expected to attend classes in university besides
handling tasks in their organizations, this point to failure in managing time and
workload. It is even worse that interns are still in college studying at the same time
they are working thus they are forced to intern during their study times this results in
the clash and stress. Challenges in managing different tasks or projects could be
prevalent especially when organizing under pressure or when other internships’ tasks
require much time and resources. Besides, general poor academic performances and
the pressure exerted by their supervising officers to deliver quality internships
consequently affects their health and study. The 4 reasons may hinder working
students from performing their tasks as required due to interference of time through
work and school schedules, however some strategies are essential when it comes to
working while studying, including having organizational skills, personal discipline,
and support from advisors and managers.
Conclusion
Internships are seen as efficient for the improvement of the work experience
and the vocational training, for the jobs search and for the increase of the personnel’s
circle, and for the development of the portfolios. They expose candidates to ascertain
that they are well equipped to meet the emergent needs of the employers in terms of
skill and competence development which are the cardinal hallmarks of the modern
working world such as good communication skills, analytic skills, and interpersonal
skills among others.
New generation CVs where the work experience is presented with fresh work
experience, interns position themselves in an organization for benefit, particularly for
organizational advantage especially where the candidate has little or no experience to
bring to bear. There is also an added bonus, acknowledged by Gilly, that it is the
interns who can ask for full-time employment with this particular company some of
the time, so at least they look somewhat ready as they are already armed with
internship experience and at least some understanding of how that particular company
works.
