The Importance of the Internship

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

The Importance of the Internship 2

The Importance for Companies 2

The Importance for Students 4

My Internship Experience 5

Making of the Internship 5

During the Internship 6

Project Diagram 8

Favorite Aspects of My Internship 9

Least Favorite Aspects of my Internship 9

What I learned 10

Leadership & Management Skills 10

What I Wish I Had Learned 11

Conclusion 11

Introduction

My name is Alex Parker den Herder. I was born and raised on the South East side of Houston, Texas. With Houston being a major international hub in the United States, I was exposed to the international aspect of business and trade from an early age. My father works for an international company, where he has traveled to many of their offices around the world. From all of this exposure, I was influenced and inspired to take up studying international business, which brings us to today. My senior year at the University of Texas at San Antonio where I am dual majoring in, Management, International Business (B.B.A), and Information Systems (B.B.A) as well as interning for Universal Weather and Aviation , Inc. This paper will take you through my internship experience where I will touch upon the importance of an internship, to my internship project, and the things I learned.

The Importance of the Internship

When you ask students around campus about their internship experience, you get mixed reviews. Some have had amazing experiences that really allowed them to learn and grow, and others just the opposite. While others wake up day after day commuting to an office just to be assigned other employees busy work or even being their paper pusher. So then how reliable or beneficial can an Internship be to a student or future employer?

The Importance for Companies

This day and age, to increase efficiency without going over budget, companies are expecting more and more from new employees. Even in a vast number of entry-level jobs, companies are very focused on those with prior years of experience. How can a student, fresh out of college with a shiny new diploma, attain valid work experience before actually having had a career-level job? Through an Internship.

When a company is first looking at an interviewee fresh out of college, for the most part they are interested in three things: does their work experience fit what we are looking for, do they have potential, and how much do they have to be trained. New hire recruiting and training is a huge expense on companies. While they are interested in supporting development of the next generation of employees, they are also investing their time and money in an employee, with the intent of getting a return in the form of results. Due to this financial investment, companies also have to be very selective of their new hires due to employee turnover. So companies want to refrain from training an employee just to have them leave. In the search to meet all of their criteria at a reasonable price, employers turn to selecting from a list of ambitious interns.

Through an internship program, employers are able to take on a college student or group of college students who are proactively invested in their education and future. This means instead of advertising and recruiting for the right employee, students do their research and look for the company that can give them the experience they are looking for. When company takes on interns, it’s also allows them to “test-drive” these candidates within their own work environment. This “test drive” gives the company the chance to accurately evaluate whether or not the intern has the potential to be a future employee. If a company decides to hire one of their interns, they ultimately gain a new employee with not only proven experience, but experience with their company. If no intern is hired the company is still able to benefit through the temporary boost in manpower. Due to the nature of internship programs, companies are able to take advantage of these benefits at the fraction of the cost it would normally take to gamble on the unknown interviewee. Another benefit with candidates funneling through internship programs, is the constant flow of updated and new information that allows companies stay current and relevant in the market, by virtue of the student’s current education. Companies can receive all of these benefits interns are able to offer at the fraction of the cost of full-time employees. In the end, the company benefitting. The company supports the intern, and possibly another company in the same industry, all while fulfilling their corporate social responsibility to the surrounding community.

The Importance for Students

For a student, making the transition from a lifetime of studying to a career can be very intimidating and daunting. Just like employers, doing an internship allows students to “test drive” a company, career, or certain industry to see if it’s the right fit for them, or determine if they would be happier in another area of business. The internship experience allows students to see the application of learned knowledge and gain understanding of how their coursework is preparing them to enter their chosen career This clarity can help a student feel more comfortable with their career choice and is a way to allow them to make that big step and transition seamlessly into the working world. Students coming out college with any internship experience have an advantage over other candidates. This advantage gives them a better chance of getting hired not only by the company they interned for but by others as well.

Previously internships used to consist of making coffee, completing busy work for employees, or just being a paper pusher. Now with more and more companies seeing the pivotal role internships have on the current state of business, the level of work given to interns has evolved substantially. With this evolution, you see more intricate and demanding tasks given to interns to really test them and allow them to develop skills that are highly sought after. Aside from