Breakfast Babble: ED’s own little space on the interwebs where we gather to discuss ideas and get pumped up for the day. We judge things too. Sometimes. Always. Whatever, call it catharsis and join in people.
With the temperatures soaring high and the humidity outside being unbearable, I sit back at home, relaxing on my couch and watching football.
It’s been a month into my vacations and while seamlessly going through the Snapchat or Instagram stories of my friends for perhaps the umpteenth time in the day, I come across yet another story of one of my friends putting up a picture of himself wearing formals and sitting in a comfortable chair in the office of some corporate company.
Internships, as they say, used to be about getting familiar with work and stepping out in the practical world.
But now? No, not anymore.
Internship is the new ‘cool’ factor with which college students judge each other. It has become a trend of not just doing one, but even measuring the quantity of internships one is doing.
“Oh you aren’t doing an internship? I’m doing three this summer”, said one of my friends.
And for what reason? “To boost my CV”, he said, with an unapologetic smile.
ALSO READ: Here’s Why Corporate Internships Are A Trap For College Students
This is the kind of mentality that college students are starting to develop. To load their CV with anything and everything, without bothering to look into how it is really helping them. They do internships only for the sake of it.
They fail to look at the bigger picture and are being fooled in the name of developing their skills. One might feel a sense of accomplishment after the completion of an internship, but when they will actually step out in the corporate world, they’ll realize what false sense of security they had.
What these students end up doing in those lavish offices is pretty much evident in their stories. Sitting at a desk in front of their new laptops for terribly long working hours at distant locations for a meager stipend and performing stupid calculations or entering data.
Companies treat such students like their employees rather than interns. They are expected to travel to their remote offices without any reimbursement for the same.
I’m not against internships, mind you. I think internships are a wonderful way to learn how things work in big companies and getting to know the practical world. But it’s those prized few internships that well and truly make a difference. And those are the internships that one should give their best to get.
Not every internship being offered out there is worth its time. Some of them aren’t valuable, while some are just blatantly exploitative.
I resume watching yet another match of the World Cup, knowing that my classmates aren’t getting any better with the kind of internships that they are doing, and there is no need to worry.
I’ll rather sit back and relax than getting myself into doing one of those namesake internships.
And oh, I just remembered. I got to go refill my bowl of snacks. *wink wink*
Image Credits: Google Images
You’d also like to read:
http://edtimes.in/2017/07/internships-established-brand-name-firms-unknown-upcoming-firms/
