Internships give students extra edge

College degrees are a dime a dozen these days. Gone are the days when a university education assured employment and job security.

With the nation’s unemployment rate at a staggering 8.5 percent and with the economy showing no signs of bouncing back anytime soon, job applicants are placed in a situation where they need to assert a competitive edge on a massive pool of highly qualified individuals.

Certainly, employers are looking for more than just a college diploma.

Students of today must look outside the confines of the academic setting to keep up with the demands of the job market. It becomes absolutely necessary, then, that students engage themselves in internships that maximize exposure to future employment opportunities.

Broadly defined as a short work experience in a certain field, typically taking around ten weeks, internships allow students to explore new industries and to gain real-world instruction not usually available in the classroom setting.

Dario Bravo, manager of the Career Center’s Internship and International Opportunities program and author of “The Internship Advantage,” believes that it is crucial for any student to gain internship experience, even early on.

“It’s easy to find students with good grades,” Bravo said. “Imagine having a 4.0 GPA and applying to a job alongside another person who has the same academic standing. If you can offer the employer something aside from that, it makes a huge difference.”

Employers are predisposed to hire people who have prior experience within their specific industries. Internships provide employers a form of guarantee that an applicant can actually execute certain job functions.

Bravo said this guarantee is why most companies hire employees through their own internship programs. Statistically, internship experience places a prospective employee at a higher probability of getting hired.

The higher probability of being hired, coupled with the fact that the number of internships offered has not seen a significant decline in spite of the bleak job market, makes an internship all the more attractive as a means to gain employment.

Internships provide more advantages than direct employment. The short period of an internship program allows a student to explore certain fields of interest without committing to them.

This level of commitment is made possible by the fact that internships are not necessarily limited to a student’s area of study.

In fact, Bravo mentions numerous instances of students who have completely changed their career plans after doing internships. For example, he cited the case of an engineering student who had chosen his major because of his parents, but who liked his law internship so much that he ended up going to law school after graduation.

Even in specific careers, internships allow students to narrow down their areas of focus. For example, the Care Extender program offered by the UCLA Medical Center provides an opportunity for interns to rotate positions within certain departments in the hospital to immerse themselves in the real-life dynamics of the health care system.

Rana Khankan, associate manager of the Care Extender program, said the internship is a good way to gauge whether or not a career in health care is really suited for a certain person. Khankan explained that impressions people have about doctors and other health care professionals might be drastically different from reality, so a health care internship provides necessary perspective before deciding on a career in the field.

Of course, like any other job, an internship looks great on your resume simply because it informs employers that you are actively seeking to learn and to improve yourself. After all, internships also provide the opportunity to learn other valuable skill sets and to expand knowledge.

“There are other advantages offered by the internship aside from those that involve health care,” Khankan said. “Students are given the opportunity to explore how the system and logistics work. From an administrative standpoint, students have a lot to gain.”

Far too often, internships are viewed as optional or subordinate to academic standing in terms of relevance to finding a job. They are most definitely not.

In this uncertain job market, students cannot afford to simply be students in the traditional sense. It is imperative that students, even at the undergraduate level, expose themselves to the realities of employment. The working world is inevitable. Give yourself a head start by getting into the game as early as possible.

E-mail Ong at rong@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.

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