The bourgeoisie seem to expect that straight after college they’ll be hired into well-paying, $60,000-or-more-a-year jobs, with full benefits and paid holidays. What we find, though, is a large number of kids placing their scholastic endeavors at the bottom of the list, doing nothing but keg stands and watching Jersey Shore for four years until they’re thrown into the real world completely unprepared.
The bourgeoisie seem to expect that straight after college they’ll be hired into well-paying, $60,000-or-more-a-year jobs, with full benefits and paid holidays. What we find, though, is a large number of kids placing their scholastic endeavors at the bottom of the list, doing nothing but keg stands and watching Jersey Shore for four years until they’re thrown into the real world completely unprepared.
An education should be a gumbo composed of every ingredient required to form a well-rounded professional who, when finished with coursework, is prepared to join the work force.
Being able to analyze and write a poem isn’t going to be a very useful skill when it comes to landing a job that isn’t teaching other people how to analyze and write poems.
This deficiency of relevance in our education is detrimental when we find ourselves in the work force with a skill set limited to calculus formulae and Socratic discussions and find that it’s not as helpful as expected.
Employers know this, and place preference on those who have applied what they have learned in a productive manner through real-world experience.
A lack of hands-on experience is perhaps the largest obstacle recent grads face in the job hunt. You can have all the degrees and fancy pieces of paper you can stand to earn, but they don’t mean much to employers if you haven’t practically applied your newly gained knowledge.
With the recession in 2008 and its molasses-speed recovery, the competition for jobs has never been more intense. We’re now not only competing against our classmates, but also the unemployed millions with decades of real work experience.
It only makes sense, then, that completing an internship or apprenticeship should be a degree requirement.
Internships are sort of like job-shadowing. You work in a professional setting with actual professionals, usually taking care of tasks that require less skill, while being exposed to and witnessing procedures for working in that position.
With such low employment rates for new grads, internships are an invaluable way to gain relevant work experience.
As much as 70 percent of mentors hire their interns. That being said, bear in mind that internships are temporary—don’t expect to be hired on for permanent employment. This number has risen from 57 percent in 2007, as more employers place value on exposure to an industry.
Internships differ from actual employment chiefly in duration and compensation. Internships typically last from a single school term to a couple of years, and pay runs the gamut from a letter of recommendation to a hefty stipend.
German engineering company Siemens pays its American apprentices $12–27 hourly; Seattle-based Boeing offers intern wages ranging from $18–33 per hour, while my summer internship at the Oregon Zoo paid me a t-shirt and a discount on coffee.
If you don’t have a college degree, apprenticeships can actually supersede post-secondary education. Going straight into apprenticeships is common practice in Europe and in technical vocations that require deep knowledge of a specific trade.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers reported that, of reporting companies, 62 percent of newly hired employees participated in an internship program.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported that there are 388,000 apprentices in the nation, with 128,000 new apprenticeships starting yearly.
Being an intern isn’t just making copies and getting coffee, it’s how you can preview what it’s like to work in an environment you’d otherwise have limited awareness of.
Bonus: Approved internships can give you up to eight credits to apply to your degree. Check it out, and put yourself a step ahead of the flock. You just might be one of the few who have a job before you have a diploma in hand.
