Don’t abandon the internship

For many students both on and off Utah State University campus, weighing the pros and cons of unpaid internships is difficult. An internship beefs up your resume, gives you real experience in your possible future workplace, and allows you to network for your specific field. On the other hand, unpaid internships mean you aren’t making any money (in fact, you could be losing money for living expenses), which puts many students in the precarious position of picking a life with or without debt.

Sara Jensen is the internship coordinator for the Institute of Government and Politics, or IOGP, on campus. While she focuses specifically on recruiting students for domestic political internships in Salt Lake City and Washington D.C., she said the IOGP is the university’s primary leader to help students find an internship abroad.

“Through our office, students can get academic credit for internships with organizations and companies overseas in all parts of the world,” Jensen said, “and we offer both in-person and remote internships.”

The IOGP has helped students of all sorts of majors to find all sorts of internships in all sorts of fields.

“We have placed students with consulting companies in Ireland, mountain bike design companies in Italy, Art museums in Prague and Human Rights Non-Governmental Organizations in Thailand. The variety of opportunities is quite broad,” said Shannon Peterson, who works as the director of Global Programming for the IOGP and thus is at the helm of all international internships.

Both Jensen and Peterson emphasized the impact on personal growth an internship can have, both in and outside of the academic setting.

“You can get professional experience in a career field that potentially interests you, increase your cultural competence, as well as your language and intercultural communications skills, explore a different part of the world, develop your professional and personal network, and,” Peterson said, “perhaps most importantly, you learn a lot of about yourself.”

Aside from personal growth, students who complete internships are much more likely to find a job after graduation. According to a study conducted by software company Nulab, 40.3% of respondents were hired by the same employer with whom they did their internship. 79.6% of managers said they would be more likely to hire an applicant with relevant internship experience than one without.

However, these findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Their survey included less than 1,000 participants, with almost two-thirds of them having taken an internship.

But still, internships give you a real look into a possible career path for you while you’re still in college (and have more flexibility to explore other options if it doesn’t work out). And that is priceless in and of itself.