Being an intern is a good way to gain work experiences. Employees’ first work experience usually begins with internship periods. When you are an intern, you have many opportunities.
First advantage of internship period is being aware of work environment. You can easily experience how works going on, what employees do, what the basic rules are. These are first impressions for you. May be you like or not, first impression is important. This leads the way. You start to think about which industry or which function do you want to work.
You can have experience more than one departments with an internship periods. This is another advantage. May be you wonder about sales or marketing department, so you have a chance to know more about it. You can ne an intern in this department, or you can talk with other departments to know what they do. Also you can ask to Human Resources about all departments’ responsibilites. You have an insight about departments via orientation programs.
On the other hand; when you are an intern, you have a chance to be a member of a team. You are doing some works under the control and you also have a chance to make a mistake. Yes, we all are making mistakes. If you make mistakes during the internship periods, mistakes are easily corrected and you are able to learn the corrected way. It is best way to learn.
You may lead a project among other interns or assist the department which you intern. By way of these experiences you are able to improve skills such as written and verbal communication, interpersonal skills, time management etc. And you are also aware of corporate software, MS Excel reporting formats etc.
You should also aware of possible disadvantages you may face with. Despite the advantages of being intern, you could face with some disadvantages depend on the company’s attitudes. Especially for short term internship periods, some companies can avoid to train the interns. Because they don’t have much time to train them. Even these type of companies, you are able to aware of thoughts of companies and you have knowledge acquired by listening.
You will realize how important being an intern, when you have a real job. Even it is not a mandatory, I recommend to you have an internship experience. It brings great benefits to you more than I mention. At least you will have self confidence in your first working day or it will be taken as a reference even though you may face with disadvantages.
Please leave a comment about your internship both advantages and/or disadvantages of the period.