But why are so many interns doing things they shouldn’t? According to a study by Harris Interactive, there’s a huge gap between students’ perceptions of their abilities and managers’ perceptions of those same skills. Only about half of college grads who have taken the time to complete internships say they feel prepared for the workplace, and the number of bosses who think they’re prepared is lower than 40 percent.
7 comments:
"According to a study by Harris Interactive, there’s a huge gap between students’ perceptions of their abilities and managers’ perceptions of those same skills."
I've been told that this exact thing was said by employers to CMU's Career and Professional Development Center (I think that's what they're called, at least) about our students. It was probably specific to certain majors but still generally true overall. Exactly what is it about CMU that breeds such an unnecessarily haughty attitude...
I think the rest of this article is a generalized set of recommendations, and not for every industry. While I understand the need for paid internships versus unpaid internships the truth of the matter is that in certain industries, unless you're really good at what you do, you just can't get a job that pays. I think this is rapidly decreasing in frequency thanks to many laws that are receiving public attention, thankfully.
As someone who has taken part in several good internship opportunities, I agree with all but one of the arguments made. I also like the way they structured in, in such a way that there were things they pointed out that people need to do for themselves in order to make it a successful experience, but also things that they should be looking for from the internship itself. The thing i disagreed with was the comment about unpaid internships. I agree that paid are better but i would not necessarily discount offhand the skills and connections that you could get from an unpaid one.
I agree, but it's HARD to find something that fits all of these requirements. Sure, I would like to get paid for my summer or other outside work. But I also enjoy theatre, and I want to do theatre during these times, and most internships either don't pay or pay very little in this field. That is the downfall of having a profession you would work in for free (at other times, I think this means I just like my job.) It would be difficult to picture myself working at Coldstone Creamery for 3 months having given up a good theatre internship, even if that internship were unpaid. Of course, the things listed in this article are all preferable, but finding and getting an internship with all five is not something I've yet been able to do.
I agree with all the points in the article. Internships are a bit ridiculous, they just mean that you are doing very very entry level work that you should probably be getting paid to do but because you do not know that you should or because you can't really get a real job anywhere you have to take the internship. You can get experience at internships a lot of times it comes with abuse attached.
I agree with every thing on this list except the idea of not doing unpaid internships. Some of the companies, with the most insight to offer their interns, can't pay them. I worked at a non- profit in high school and although they couldn't pay me, they gave me the most information and experience in what is was like working in a office setting.
I agree with the points of this article, but as others have pointed out, a lot of industries don't support this. An intern is unpaid, and will be getting coffee and making copies. If things are going to change, I think they will have to change from the top, because a lowly intern can't really rebel against the system when there are 200 other potential interns in line behind them waiting for them to mess up. This might not be true in all instances, but is still a huge problem that needs fixing.
I think knowing this stuff is very important, especially for people my age who are most likely looking at a couple of years of internships in their future. It is important to know where to draw the line, especially if you are an unpaid intern. This is why I greatly appreciate this article, as well as Molly McCarter’s talk to the freshman Design and Production students during our Basic Production and Technology Management class. I think most interns really end up being taken advantage of, but they do not know that they should not be doing these certain tasks or feel uncomfortable speaking up about not doing what they are being asked to do. I one hundred percent fall into that category, and I am glad that we had a class to discuss what is ok and what is not so that I know when I am an intern in the future.
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