Shenglong Liu
E4(Argument 2)
12 Nov 2013
Valuable Internship While unpaid college internships give students opportunities to gain useful professional skills and experience, college cooperative education programs provide more formal career training. Many students, instead of focus on their school entirely, choose to participate in internships without getting paid. Why would they make this kind of decisions? Well, the answer is that internships can help students gain work experience and skills, get a job opportunity, and it is a new requirement for recruiters. First of all, the unpaid internships are beneficial because they offer real-world, practical experience. “The experience you gain is indescribable,” said Brittany Harris, who interned at NBC, CBS, and Kurtis Productions in Chicago as a college student and is now looking for a full-time job as a broadcast journalist. “Classes can only teach you so much about how the real world operates, but nothing beats seeing how it works on a day-to-day basis.”(Halperin 589) It is important to participate internship before getting a real job. Students would learn that the real world out there is not going to be like what they read in textbooks. The textbooks can only provide some information that tells students how to deal with certain kind of situation, but what matters most to them actually happens outside of their classroom where students can learn skills that they never learn inside of their classroom. In addition, an internship is not only about experience and skills. “Unpaid internships are totally worth the hours you put in and the hard work,” says Hannah Ferdinand, a production assistant for the Dr. Oz Show who had five internships while in college. “Employees of the work- place understand that you are working and learning for free.”(Halperin 589) The work-place will see if you are serious about this job and your career. As a reward, perhaps, they will hire you with a potential job. When you finish your internship, you may land a job. If you do not get the job, you still gain some valuable work experience on that specific job field. The more experience you gain, the brighter resume you will have. Internship is a new requirement for jobs. “Internships came back as the most important thing that employers look for when evaluating a recent college graduate,” says Dan Berrett, a senior reporter at the Chronicle, “More important than where they went to college, the major they pursued, and even their grade point average.” Kristin Hayes is one of the first students at Stony Brook University, on Long Island, to do a co-op. She works part-time taking care of disabled adults at a group home run by the non-profit YAI Network. Hayes is biology major and plans to apply to graduate school to become a physician’s assistant. And David Carter wishes he followed his professors’ advice to do an internship when he was in college. He graduated two years ago from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he studied mechanical engineering. In spite of good grades and a practical major, Carter hasn’t been able to find work. (Scott) We can see that participation in an internship is so much more important to students who try to land a job when they graduate. Indeed, internships are very important these days. When recruiting, companies always choose candidates with experience over the ones who haven’t had any experience, even when they both meet the qualifications. Even if the pay rates are low, the interns should receive a ton of relevant experience they can use for the future. The value of internships cannot be calculated. The work experience you get out of internship and the importance of having an internship are so vital to college students. We all should acknowledge that by now. Once you get your internship done very well, you will see how effective that internship is for your future. I hope all students can get an internship and from there goes to their success in life.

Work cited
Scott Amy. " Internships become the new job requirement" Marketplace Morning Report. 4 Mar. 2013. Tue. 12 Nov. 2013.
Halperin Jennifer "No Pay? Many Interns Say, 'No Problem' "Patterns for College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. 12th ed. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Boston: Bedford, 2012. 642 Print.