In today’s economy, the importance of educating students to be prepared for their future is crucial. As a young entrepreneur, I feel responsible for communicating directly with students and explaining to them the perks of starting and running their own business. With the chaotic behaviors of several corporations, it’s looking more and more appealing for students to graduate college and start their own business.
I’m a huge advocate for internships, I’m actually the “Intern Queen” (http://www.internqueen.com) and I believe that students wanting to go the corporate route or the entrepreneur route should both start with internships. A positive or negative internship experience helps a student learn about who they are and who they want to be.
If I hadn’t interned, I would have no idea how a business is run. Watching and observing different employers and the different processes that went on at each company, I was able to pick and choose which of those I wanted to apply to my own business. I highly suggest internships for future entrepreneurs.
WHY AN INTERNSHIP ? It’s important to encourage students to take the internship initiative. An internship provides a real world experience. Students get to see what it’s like to be part of a team, work in an office environment, manage professional relationships, network, and perform entry-level tasks.
PURSUIT OR ELIMINATION. I held 15 internships during my four years of college. Each internship pointed me in a specific direction. The internships I enjoyed pointed me further into that industry. The internships I didn’t enjoy pointed me away from certain fields. Each experience taught me what I like and what I didn’t like.
THE NETWORKING. The contacts that students can build at an internship are endless. I met hundreds of executives, assistants, and mid-level execs during my internships. Some of these people have gone on to run their own companies, some have gone into other fields. I try to keep in touch with everyone I’ve met through my internships over the years. These people have been instrumental in helping me take the plunge from corporate office to self-starter.
HANDS ON EXPERIENCE. No one wants to start at the bottom, but sometimes it’s what you have to do. Tasks like making copies, preparing coffee, printing out pages are usually necessary in any entry-level position. Once you know how to do these, you don’t have to waste time learning how to do them once you graduate. These internships put you in a better and more experienced position once you graduate. Along with the crummy tasks are usually some more exciting ones. The perks to interning are getting to sit in on meetings and brainstorming sessions, participating in feedback sessions, meeting clients, getting face-to-face experience with executives, and hopefully building up your rolodex to help you land a job in the future.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Great post, Lauren! I absolutely agree with you about the importance of interning. It’s one thing to THINK you want to be in a particular career and blindly pursue it. It’s another thing altogether to get real exposure to the business so you can determine if it’s really what you want to pursue. Interning is a great way to narrow down the choices and have confidence that what you end up pursuing is indeed what you really want to do. Thanks for this very informative post!
May 5th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Fantastic post Lauren! It is such great advice for the young women out there that are in college right now trying to figure out what they want to do. Some internships do pay, not a lot, but their out there. So, for those that need to make a little money while going to college and figure out their career, they need to seek out a paid internship. Again, great post, great advice!