For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to lump co-ops, externships, apprenticeships, and all other forms of temporary employment coordinated through an educational institution under the generic term internship. For a detailed explanation of the different types of internships and what to expect from each, I highly recommend this article at CampusCareerCenter.com. Practically every college and university in the country has an established internship program that provides a means for students to work onsite for pre-determined durations with local employers. Many larger universities will offer internship opportunities all over the country, allowing students to work in locations of their choosing. Internships are typically available to students immediately upon undergraduate enrollment, but most don’t pursue the opportunities until they embark on post-graduate degrees. And while internships are great for applying post-graduate knowledge in a real-world setting, they can be an even more valuable experience for undergrads that are unsure of what they want to do with themselves after graduation. There are countless reasons why internships are a great opportunity for undergraduate students. Here are a few:

Identify Jobs You Hate

What better way to determine that you do not want to pursue a career path than to test it out first hand? Nothing will tell you more about your decision to major in accounting than spending a few weeks in an accounting firm. Maybe it’s everything you dreamed it would be. Maybe it sucks. The point is that you’ll have first-hand knowledge of at least one tiny piece of the accounting world before you are too far along in your degree to change your mind. The same holds true for every profession or field of study. Because most people have no real idea what they want to do when they graduate from college, it is always a good idea to safely test the waters of the “real world” before being thrust into them with the cement shoes of unrealistic expectations and cost of living expenses weighing you down.

A few short weeks or even days participating in an internship can answer many questions about what it’s like to work in a particular field. Obviously, an internship may not provide a complete look at the inner workings of a given profession, but undergraduates will often get enough of a glimpse to make an informed decision about the course of their educational and professional future. If you wait until you are in grad school to intern, it may be too late to change course.

Confirm Necessary Skills

Most college majors are broad in scope and give students a thinly spread foundation of knowledge that is arguably applicable to numerous career paths. An internship can help a student identify which skills will be most necessary to succeed in a given career. At the undergraduate level, this is a huge advantage in mapping future course choices. For example, an internship in an investment banking firm may reveal a greater than expected emphasis on mathematics and statistical modeling. As a result, you may be able to scratch that History of Economic Theory seminar series you’ve been dreading and instead spend that time in the library with your dog-eared first edition of Calculus for Dummies.

Network Like it’s 1999

Even if you get the least desirable internship available and you know it will never offer any educational or work-related value, it may still be worth your time. Regardless of the field of your internship, the professionals that you meet there may become excellent resources for you during your career(s). It is rare these days for someone to stay in one career for their entire working life, so it is likely that people you meet during your internship will eventually be on a career path that intersects with yours. Or perhaps they may know someone that knows someone that may be able to help you in the future. Networking – you know how it works and there are few better times or places to do it than during an internship.

Eliminate the What Ifs

As someone that never took advantage of the internship opportunities available to me as an undergrad, I know that you might look back and wonder, “What if?” Would your career path have been changed in any way had you taken an internship position? Although I’m pretty satisfied with how my professional life has evolved, there is certainly the possibility that the knowledge, experience, or contacts gained during an undergraduate internship would have afforded me an opportunity for greater career success. Of course that may not have been the case and I may have gained little from an internship. But the point is that I will never know – and now I will never have the opportunity to find out.

The point here is that internships are worth your time and effort to participate in them, if and when they are available to you. The benefits described above are just a few of the many reasons why internships are great opportunities for undergrads to explore potential career choices. And while it is no guarantee that an internship will be a stepping stone to professional success and fulfillment, there is something to be gained from practically every internship experience - and absolutely nothing to lose.

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