You get higher education to better equip you for life and for a great career. You choose your majors to specialize in specific areas that you are interested in. Ultimately, it all comes down to improving your chances of landing a good job, but is just the college course enough?

Getting work experience
You might be getting good grades and pursuing a career-oriented course, but you may find that these are not enough when you apply for a job.

Most employees want to hire candidates who have had some experience working in the appropriate field. Competition is also high in the job market, making it difficult to land a job owing to the number of applicants for the role. However, you can’t get work experience without a job, and you can’t get a job without experience. How do you resolve this catch-22 situation? An internship is the answer.

What you need to know about a college internship
While you are still studying, you can opt for internship programs that may be paid or unpaid. An internship can help contribute valuable experience to your resume. Internships let you gain work experience before you graduate; moreover, you learn how your education is applied to the real world.

Some colleges provide course credits for internships, but they must fulfill certain conditions. You could seek the help of your faculty adviser to make sure which internships count toward college credits and about the associated rules and regulations.

Your college internship can be taken up as a part-time job during your course, or you can take up an internship during the holidays. Either way, you add work experience to bolster your resume, in addition to your academic qualifications.

It is a good idea to do an internship while at college, but it is even better to do more than one internship during this time. If you are a freshman, you might have a better chance of getting an internship if you go the unpaid internship way. Seniors might have already completed one or more internship programs and might have a better chance of getting well-paid internships.

Choose the college internship program with care as you will need to gain experience in the field you want to pursue a career in. While some programs provide focused work in one area, others might give you a broader view, offering you work in different areas that are relevant to your specialization.

The work experience you gain can also give you insights into whether your chosen specialization is actually the best choice for you or whether you should reconsider your choice and major in some other field. It might also help confirm that your chosen field matches your skills and expectations and is the appropriate one for you. A college internship also gives you a preview of an actual work environment: you acquire additional skills like working as a team and interpersonal skills.