Section 5 - Internship Value

Internships, I believe, are the most important part of a persons education.  Internships give a person the chance to investigate what it is they want to do, and what it is they don't want to do.  For me my internship experiences have provided me with a breadth of career choices that I would have not even considered had I not interned where I did.  Internships also give a person the chance to make mistakes and learn from them.  During my first internship, with Merck & Co., Inc. I had many faults with my software development skills.  I had very sloppy documentation, I lacked system life cycle knowledge, and in general I had no idea how a IS group was managed.  None of those things mattered, when I made mistakes they showed me better ways to do it instead of just telling me I was wrong, or they would review it with me and tell me why it was wrong and what I should do the next time. I now find that I have very neat and organized documentation, I have a very strong knowledge of system life cycle, and I could probably manage a small IS group.  If not for my internships I would not have any idea where to go after college or what to do.

Internships provide the interns with confidence for entering the work force with, knowledge of the business world, real life work experience, and most importantly  a basis on which to rate there future careers on.  If for no other reason than it adds to a resume I think that all computer science majors should have an internship of some kind before the leave school, because it is that important to the career development of a student.

Created By Rodney W. Lam    Email Address: lam2rw@jmu.edu