Why are professional internships important during University years?

Professional internships are one of the experiences you should enjoy during University years. Having a first contact with the professional world is one of many challenges University life will offer you, one of the great occasions when we will be able to face our fears and uncertainties and overcome them to grow and mature personally.

Probably when you decided what degree to study you imagined what your professional future would be: working at a hospital, at a school, company or journal…Professional internships are that first contact with the professional reality and it is going to provide you with skills and knowledge you will not get in books and which are so useful when you join the labour market.

The time for professional internships varies depending on the degree you are studying (in this sense, times are not the same for Infant Education or for Medicine, for example). Even if you study Odontology, Journalism, Veterinary….it is possible that your first professional internship will be at University premises.

7 keys of professional internships

Anyway when the time comes to do these professional internships these are the positive aspects you may draw from professional internships:

• Reinforce and settle the knowledge gained in class.
• Develop soft skills in a professional ecosystem: time management, team work, goal-oriented work…
• Know first-hand the different professional opportunities offered by your degree and discover the basic process of each work. With that information you can better define which is going to be your professional objective.
• Start gaining experience and give form to your CV with different professional experiences that will provide you with added value with which to outstand from the rest of candidates in future recruitment processes.
• Discover yourself in a new environment. You will get the chance to measure and analyse your strengths and weaknesses or those aspects you consider you still have room for improvement. There are always things to improve, we should work more and therefore it is necessary to know which of them are.
• Start building your network of professional contacts. It is your first opportunity to make yourself known in the sector. Make the most of it! During your professional internship you will relate with colleagues, supervisors, head of departments, clients…who you may encounter again in the future. Also if you make a good impression, any of these people may offer you your first contract. It is a very important moment of your professional life.
• Occasionally you will have the chance to combine classes and internships. It will be an intense but tremendously valuable period in the personal field. These new responsibilities mill make you more productive and help you better administer your time. And in future recruitment processes recruiters will value that you have combined studies and internships.