This is Part IV in our series on internships. If you haven’t already check out our earlier articles:
4 Reasons College Students Should Get An Internship
Small Versus Large Internships
Internship Pay: How Much and What Industries
Now that I’ve talked a little bit about what you can gain from internships and the things you should know about them, let’s talk about the process of applying for an internship.
This is Part III in our series on internships. If you haven’t check out our earlier articles you should read these posts.
4 Reasons College Students Should Get An Internship
Large Versus Small Internships
Another question I hear often is do internships pay? If so how well do internships pay?
This is a more complicated question than yes or no. This depends on the industry and whether this is a structured internship or not. It also depends on whether this is a summer or long-term internship. I’ll address each separately.
This is part II in my series on internships. If you didn’t read part I, you should check it out first.
4 Reasons A College Student Should Get an Internship
Now that we’ve addressed why you should intern, let’s look at some of the specifics and address some questions that I have heard. First I’d like to divide internships into 2 general categories: large internship programs and small unofficial programs.
I saw today on collegeboard.com a great article on 20 questions every high schooler should ask their high school counselor. Here is the list. I hope any high school kids (especially younger one’s with time left) take a look at the list. Your counselor is one of your best resource for anything both school related and college related. These people are there to help and are usually greatly underutilized.
For those of you who are mid-way through your freshman, sophomore, or junior year, hopefully you have considered getting an internship. Internships are basically a glorified way for a lot of companies to get cheap labor from qualified college students. Internships are also used as basically a long-term interview to decide if the company wants to make a full-time offer. This sounds a lot grimmer than it is, and there are a lot of great reasons to consider an internship. In the next few paragraphs I will discuss many of the aspects involved with why you should get an internship.
I just want to apologize to any of my readers who have been unable to read the articles over the past 2 days. I have been attempting to make some updates and again I completely admit that I am terrible with wordpress. This is a learning process so hopefully you will bear with me as I get better. The articles are back up and running and I hope to hear from more of you soon.
Today is Super Tuesday and depending on where you live the polls are starting to end. If you still have time get out and vote today. I have been around campus today and I can tell you that not near enough college students care enough to bother to cast their vote for a political candidate, though this will effect these students more than any other demographic in America. What is determined in the next few months will affect students as they try to graduate, start their first job, but their first house and start families.
When is it to late to change your major? This question or a variation of it is something I hear frequently. And of course, the answer is never that simple. So let’s walk through some of the considerations in when to change your major.
In my opinion, there are 2 major issues to consider when changing your major:
1. What can you do with your current one?
2. Do you know what you want to do instead?
If you are pre-med (biology, chemistry, etc…) and you decide you hate everything about medicine, then you have little choice but to change your major, regardless of whether it is year 1 or year 4.
Today I thought I would address a few of the issues that come to mind when choosing a college major. While your major does not necessarily determine exactly what you will do with your life, it certainly is a distinct indicator. While this article may not be helpful for the freshman that has wanted to be a vet since she was 5 or has a life-long passion for teaching, I believe that this may help the bulk of college freshman put some framework on their thoughts on choosing a major.
First I would like to note that there are 2 areas to choose between at your typical college: liberal arts and everything else. If you choose liberal arts then you are going to have a lot more time to find your exact major because there will be tons of prerequisites within the liberal arts college before you have to specialize. The second option of “everything else” includes all the fields that require a more distinct choice immediately. These would include engineering, pre-med, architecture or business. Also note that there is a lot of room to maneuver within these areas such as business (marketing, finance, accounting) or engineering (civil, electrical, bio-medical). I know when I began college I had an image in my head that you had two years of basics before you even had to begin figuring out what you want to do. While this may be true of the exact major (finance or electrical engineering) it is not true of the general area of study (business or engineering). Every semester I wasn’t taking classes in the business college put me behind.
