As a student or someone with limited job experience internships can be a wonderful way to gain experience and get your foot in the door even if you initially work for free. In medieval times finding a job was easier. If your father had a profession you were expected to take over the family business and go into that profession. However, if the family had too many sons or didn’t have a family profession the youngster (often at the age of 13 or younger) could become an apprentice to a professional in need of some help. The young apprentice would be given the most menial of tasks, starting with sweeping up the shop or doing other tasks that the “master” didn’t want to do. Then slowly he would be given increasing responsibilities until by the age of 18 he would be able to perform the vast majority of what the master could do. This system of training worked well and even Benjamin Franklin was an apprentice in a printing shop.
Today we send our children to school where hopefully they will learn to read and write and eventually get into college. Once they graduate they are on their own but depending on their major they may not have a single marketable skill. After all, how much demand is there for underwater basket weavers, or psychology majors? Even if you major in a profession like engineering or drafting where there is a defined job path it is often difficult to break in to the profession without any experience. And that is where internships come in. [Read more…] about Internships Can Help