The right internship during your degree can be integral to shaping your career path and creating new possibilities for a great graduate position. It can significantly contribute to you making choices that will lead you towards your future career decisions. This article will highlight how internships can influence your career decisions:
1. Allows you to apply your knowledge
Internships allow you to apply knowledge you have learnt in your degree or any prior learning. It encourages you to have practical experiences that enable you to apply what you have learnt in a real-world context. Internship opportunities not only enhance your understanding of the industry you would like to work in but also give insights into any new details you can learn about your career. It allows you to go beyond the classroom and delve into the professional realm. If you find it difficult to overcome new workplace anxiety this article can help. Internships also provide a space in which you can expand your knowledge on a specific subject that connects to your future career. Highlighting areas for improvement, growth, and new subject matters that you are interested in.
2. Exposure in an industry
Participating in an internship allows you to experience your future career. This exposure can be instrumental in broadening your perspective and provide a look into the work that happens in your industry. You will encounter different people, and new environments and will be challenged in exciting ways. You will also learn about the values within the industry, allowing you to recognise if this is a place in which you work well in, as well as what does not align with your career prospects. It also allows you to see your future career goal in reality, being in the workplace gives way to new challenges and can shape your career moving forward. It provides a space in which you can grow and enhance your connections with people, allowing you to make educated decisions about the industry you would like to work in and how that would align with your goals moving forward.
3. Allows you to network
Interning provides a place in which you can gain invaluable work experience and build a network. These networking experiences allow you to establish connections that can enhance your career moving forward, foster professional relationships and allow you to meet more people in your industry. Building a professional network during internships is vital to expanding your experience in your industry. It can also be integral to your career moving forward, as it allows you to gain access to new knowledge and expertise. These network opportunities can lead to job opportunities and can facilitate the forwarding of your career.
4. Enhance your skills
Internships provide a platform to which you can develop and cultivate your skills beyond an academic setting. You can refine your knowledge as well as acquire practical skills that can allow you to gain access to jobs moving forward. Skill development places you in real-world situations that apply to your career prospects, it also creates a space in which you can use industry-specific software. Learning and utilising industry-specific skills in your internship can be instrumental in providing a new job market for you. As well as, highlighting you as an individual that brings practical experience to the job. The more practical experiences you have in your industry, the more you develop integral skills that are important to your future employer. Internships can be essential to ongoing skill development, and show you the skills that you lack, allowing you to work on what is important moving forward.
 | About The Author Perpetual is an International Relations and Arts (Human Rights and Sociology) student at The Australian National University. She has been writing for Woroni since 2022 and is interested in international politics, and how we can help those around the world. |