The Poverty of University Internships

The last thing on a students mind at graduation should be "OK, now what?" But many graduate programs are filled with people failed by their undergraduate education. I don't mean they didn't pass, I mean they weren't given the tools they need for success. Not having the necessary tools they enrolled in graduate school.

College rarely prepares you for success. It prepares you to follow a manual. It prepares you to conform. It prepares you to become a gatekeeper. But it doesn't prepare you for success.

"Do what you love. You'll be better at it." -Francis Ford Coppola

I think the internship was developed to fill this discrepancy. Some administrator thought a single semester-long internship was sufficient for students to decide if they liked a line of work. Wouldn't it be better if there were 3 or 5 or 20 internships during college? Wouldn't it be better if a student had many different jobs and therefore many opportunities do learn what they like?

Payap University's IBM Internship

Being an English Communication major I have no dealings with the staff of other departments or majors. I've asked my friend and IBM student Nick Selkirk to write about the internship process in the business department.

Enter Nick:

I'm a senior International Business Management (IBM) student with a GPA of 3.79. I'm trying to arrange an internship and graduate early.

This should be easy as most Payap students do an internship. The program is called "International Experience", a six credit course consisting of an internship with progress reports. In a degree lacking practical coursework, a good internship is the only way to gain real world experience.