The Value of My College Internship

Lately I have been reading a lot about student loans and paying for college on many of the PF blogs I visit.  It seems many of the PF bloggers have the “talk about student loans and paying for school on my blog” bug right now.  In commenting on a few various excellent blogs I frequent, I realized that I had quite a fine learning experience that I could share with younger generations.

When I was a senior in college, I walked my broke self down to the internship center, and said, “I NEED AN INTERNSHIP!”  (Ok, I wasn’t “yelling” as I implied, but you get the point)  A few weeks later, I started my internship at a large Industrial Parts Supplier as a “Sales Associate Manager Trainee”.  It was a great experience, I learned a LOT, made some money, and got some A’s.  My only regret, I only had one internship.

I would like to convey this very important thought to all current college students: take advantage of your opportunity to obtain internships, and your internship center if you have one! Here’s why:

I had my internship my second semester my senior year of college.  There was a class associated with it, and because I worked between 20-30 hours a week, the internship in conjunction with the class was worth seven credits.  The class was a complete waste of time.  Assignments such as, “What have you learned and how can you apply to life after you graduate?”, and other random small assignments were basically just busy work.  I wasn’t complaining; the class was easy and I got an A for seven credits, a nice little GPA boost to end my college journey.

In addition to the GPA boost, I was also receiving excellent REAL WORLD experience.  In addition to building my resume, this is without a doubt the most important thing that I took from the internship.  Actually being a part of an inventory check, ordering additional parts, organizing hours, assisting customers, all of these things and more were excellent experiences.  The amount of responsibility that was suddenly placed on me was like none I had ever had before, and I loved it.  I often could not wait to wake up for work at 5:30 just to start working, which was probably the hardest thing to do when you have three other loud senior roommates in a little apartment during their last semester of college (thank you 7-11 coffee).

Despite the hours and lack of sleep, I enjoyed what I was doing, the respect I was treated with, my responsibilities, my ability to make a difference, and the experience I was gaining.  Probably the best feeling came when my boss offered me the full time position at the conclusion of my internship (which I turned down to pursue other things, and move back home).  The internship had taught me many, many things, but it was time for me to move on.

Finally the last point I want to make about my internship is the pay.  In addition to gaining excellent real world experience, an A for seven credits, and a greater tolerance for a lack of sleep, I was also compensated $10.00 an hour.  Compared to many internships today, this is probably pretty minimal, but it was much better than nothing considering I was working 30 hours a week quite often.  Keep in mind I still had my campus job working about 10 hours a week on top of this.  The compensation provided by the internship and my barley there campus job was a huge help during my senior year.

AGAIN, my message, no, my PLEA to all current college students: take advantage of your opportunity to obtain internships, and your internship center if you have one! I almost forgot!  On top of the three things that I previously stated, internships are also amazing resume builders!!  Instead of just having a bunch of restaurants on my resume, I had some legitimate work experience under my belt.  I still remember talking to potential employers during interviews about my internship and some of my duties.

My follow up to the previously bolded statement:  Obtain as many internship positions as you can! The more internship positions you have while in college, the more real world experience you gain, the better your resume becomes, the more money you make (maybe), and the better your grades will be (maybe).  Coming out of college with some legitimate experience on your resume is a huge achievement that probably a lot of college graduates do not have.  My only regret is that I only had one internship.  If I could I would go back and try to get one during my second semester junior year, and my first semester senior year.

So, to wrap things up, college students: take advantage of your opportunity to obtain internships, and your internship center if you have one!

Four primary benefits I received from my internship:

  • -Real World Experience
  • -Compensation
  • -Resume Builder
  • -Slight GPA boost

College students: Please take this to heart and march your broke self down to the internship center! You will not regret it!  And you will learn to love 7-11 coffee!

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March 12, 2010 · myfinancialobjective · 5 Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Good Finds

5 Responses

  1. chris - March 13, 2010

    You made excellent points on the value of an internship acknowledging that the college you attended afforded you the opportunity for this experience. What a perfect fit for you; excellent college which provided the opportunity for an excellent internship! That doesn’t happen by chance!!

    Insightful post!!!!

  2. myfinancialobjective - March 13, 2010

    Thanks Chris! The college I attended was very small and personal, they were able to find a great fit for me, which worked out great!

  3. Austin - March 15, 2010

    That’s one of my biggest regrets about college. I would suggest trying any internship if you’re indecisive. It may lead you down a road you never knew existed. But waiting for the perfect internship will leave you in college for 14 years.

    Good post!

    Austin @ Foreigner’s Finances

  4. Working Through College - Part 1 of 2 | My Financial Objectives - August 5, 2010

    [...] life that you know others are going through, that you went through previously (See my post on the value of my college internship).  I think that this is also why I love to help new hires at work who appear a bit timid.  Being [...]

  5. Working Through College - Part 2 of 2 | My Financial Objectives - August 8, 2010

    [...] Working through college can Give you Real World Experience much like an Internship Would [...]

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