By Fahdzrul Ezwan
The word ‘internship’ is no longer a stranger among students. According to the dictionary, internship means any official or formal programme to provide practical experience for beginners in an occupation or profession.
There will come a time in their study period, be it diploma or degree level, they are required to do an internship although some courses do not require its students to do it. An internship is intended to serve as an exercise for students to experience what it really means to be in a professional setting.
Internship usually runs for at least three months and students get to choose where they want to do their internship in accordance with their specialisation courses. Besides, internship is believed to give enormous benefits to students. But still in every good thing there is a bad thing and internship is no exception.
Firstly, students will gain a real world experience. When students do the internship that reflects their field of study, it gives them exposure of the courses by experiencing and applying all those theories and lessons that they have learned in the classroom. On top of that, whenever students get to do real job, they will acquire certain expertise that they probably would not be able to gain in college.
Nur Fatin Kamilah Kamal, 21, a Communication student said, “For me, as a student, I believe internship is a good thing since it gives a lot of benefits to us. We will be able to adapt ourselves with work culture once we permanently become employees of any company. We will be able to gain experiences in terms of how to cooperate with other employees and how to communicate with clients. If anyone gives me the opportunity to be an intern, I would say yes, for my own good.”
Secondly, students will get the chance to make professional network. An internship gives students the opportunity develop networking and build relationship that can benefit them in their future career. If the company where students do their internship are happy with their performance they stand a chance of being hired by the company. Even if the students do not get to be employed, presenting an excellent work record and attitude would add a good reference on their resume.
“I would like to say that internship does bring benefits for us students such as how to deal with people especially with top management and colleagues. If our performance is sufficient and excellent, there’s a big chance for us to be offered to work with the company,” said Filzah Nasuha Zakaria, a 21-year old student from IIUM.
The next benefit would be students getting good lessons. To fully understand what they have learned, students ought to apply their skills and knowledge in a real way. Internship offers a means to strengthen students’ skills and gain new ones. Students actually get to interact themselves with employers and colleague in enhancing their professionalism, etiquette, work ethic, attitude, and basic behaviour. This would prepare them to be better employees when they work in the future.
Sharing her experience doing an internship, Hanisa Jonaidin, 25, said, “I did my internship at Intiutama Sdn. Bhd. I was majoring in Quantity Surveying at Politeknik, Kota Kinabalu. During my internship at the company, they assigned me several kinds of jobs as a quantity surveyor such as preparing tender and contract documents.
“They also gave me a chance to attend staff meetings and assist the organisation in establishing client’s requirements. I am very glad that I got the chance to do the internship because the experiences were priceless and something that I believe I would not get by learning solely in college.”
However, there are quite a few disadvantages of internship, probably the most significant one would be the money issues. Internship can actually cost money in some cases. Students usually pay the same tuition and fees as they do for regular lecture classes. ‘When I did my internship, I was facing some serious money problem. I had to depend financially on my parents. The internship of course requires money to spend on food and transportation. So I was really cautious in spending money back then,’ said Hanisa of her internship experience.
Not all internships are paid by the companies. Those that usually pay interns are for-profit companies, while non-profit organisations and private individual companies on the other hand do not pay their interns. This is because if the work experience they provide relates to the students’ education, they are not required to pay the interns. Other than that, the disadvantage is that there are no guarantees. When students managed to secure an internship at a prestigious company, it does not mean that they are assured of jobs at the same company on completion of internship. Those companies which hire interns may or not hire their interns back. But if the students are lucky, they might receive the job offer from the firms.
Internship plays an important role for students in a way that it teaches them how to become a genuine employee, how to hold responsibilities, and actually it gives them the chance to experience working in the field and at the same time to learn to be a coherent worker.
Nonetheless, the disadvantages such as unpaid internships would really make students who have financial problems think twice before they decide to do internship. Personally, I think an internship is absolutely a good thing for students as part of their learning process and it would be a total loss for students who missed the opportunity. I totally encourage students out there to really consider doing internship because they will get priceless experiences for themselves and that is something they would not get from a classroom or by listening to lectures alone. ***