Career chats: Why internships are important to your career
About this video
Several professionals explain why internships matter. Internships help you discover what you do and don't want to do, show you what working life is really like, open doors to interviews and contacts, and can even turn into your first job.
You'll be able to
- explain what an internship is and why people recommend doing them.
- describe at least three ways an internship can help a career.
- explain why learning what you don't want to do is still useful.
Key words
- internship
- A short period of work experience, often for students, to learn about a job or industry.
- shadowing
- Following a professional during their work day to watch and learn what they do.
- resume
- A document that lists your education, work experience and skills for employers.
- foot in the door
- A first chance to get into a company or field that can lead to more opportunities.
Transcript
(upbeat music) - The number one thing is internships. Get as many as you can.
- And that summer I spent an internship shadowing various dentists, so a periodontist. or orthodontist for the whole gambit, and realized that was not really for me. So that internship really helped me know what I didn't want to do.
- Into the working world, my first internship I realized, wow, like, okay, this is what it means to be a responsible adult. And to wake up every morning, you know, to go to a manufacturing floor at six in the morning, it changed everything, right?
- My first internship got my foot in the door, and honestly, as soon as I got that one internship on my resume, everything kind of just opened up, and it was a lot easier to like, have those professional conversations or like reach out to people, or even just get scheduled for interviews.
- Sharing a lot about the internship because that actually then just became my first job. So I ended the internship. I had a semester of school left. I asked to have a meeting and say, so is there any jobs? Can I work here? (upbeat music)
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