Internship is a short-term opportunity given by employers of both nonprofit and for-profit sectors to students where academic learning can be applied to real-world work environments.
It can either be paid or unpaid. However, the trend is increasing towards the former. The main objective of this article is to look into the challenges faced during an internship program and how to overcome them. Much the same as work, the understudies experience an application cycle to get a temporary job. Applying and meeting for entry-level positions improve the employment form and talking abilities, which will be useful while going after a position. A temporary position on a resume separates you from the other activity searchers and makes you more serious.
Entry-level positions are turning into an inexorably normal piece of undergrad life and early vocations. Temporary job programs are profoundly famous among understudies since they speak to a chance to find out about the work, expand on homeroom learning, and develop proficient systems. In any case, there has been a lot of ongoing discussion with respect to the estimation of temporary positions, particularly for understudies at the undergrad level. A few researchers and columnists have called attention to how entry-level positions—especially unpaid ones—may offer the understudy restricted instructive or expert worth. Internships are a growing, yet controversial, labor market phenomenon. In particular, the issue of unpaid internships has been a source of legislative, judicial, and ethical debate. The students who have completed internships as a part of their university degree are better at making career decisions and are more satisfied with their career choices.
BENEFITS OF INTERNHSIPS
Internships are transitory. They can last from half a month to a year, with changing work hours yet they can prompt long haul benefits, for example, openings for work in the organization and expanded information about the industry Besides, your manager and associates can be a reference for an occupation, school applications, or even grant applications.
Internships help a student identify their skills and interests. Having an internship helps in gaining experience and increase marketability in the career field you want to pursue. This experience goes on your resume as professional experience. Today, employers favor prospective employees who have done not only one but multiple internships.
The following are some of the benefits of internship-
- It helps in exploring career-
Internships are a great way to apply the knowledge from the classroom to real-world experience. It helps in exploring different career paths and exploring your interests in different fields so that you can pursue that later. It will help in figuring out whether you like the career path in which you are doing the internship or not.
- To gain experience-
It gives you experience in the field you want to pursue. It helps in building your resume as most organizations nowadays would prefer to have employees with some professional experience. Thus, students try to do as many internships as they can to build up their resume.
- Chance to work in a professional environment-
The path of internship introduces students to a real-life work environment which helps them in learning how a workplace operates. It helps students learn about workplace culture, teamwork, and leadership. This experience will help them during their first professional job as they will be able to work with more ease.
- Â Building professional relationships-
Having an internship helps in building networks in the workplace. It is a great platform to meet professionals who can guide you to the right career path. You can also get an opportunity where they can give you job recommendations. So that is how you can secure a job by connecting with people during your internship period.
INTERNSHIP CHALLENGES AND THEIR SOLUTIONS
UNRECOGNIZED WORK
Once in a while, exhibitions stay unnoticed on the off chance that we don’t educate anybody concerning it. You get into the workplace early, you remain late, you exceed expectations in ventures doled out to you, you even assist out others and add to their prosperity, yet some way or another, nobody appears to notice. One does well in any field since they anticipate acknowledgment. As an understudy, you may be doing awesome yet at the same time, end up in a position where your part is not really valued. That can be fairly demoralizing.
What to do: It is normal to need consideration, yet you ought not to turn out to be totally subject to it, or probably each time you don’t get the reaction you expected, you will discover your certainty becoming shakier than the last time. On the off chance that you consistently perform well your work can’t be ignored.
ALLOCATION OF MINOR WORK
This is one of the commonest internship challenges faced by a large number of interns. While you might expect to be an important part of the organization, you are often offered just assisting jobs to your seniors and mentors.
What to do: Ask your chief or other collaborators if there is anything else you can help with: If you feel that you have done the given assignments well, make an inquiry or two if there are different errands you can take on. On the off chance that you are simply making espresso for everybody, you have to make a stride. Else, it is very typical, to begin with, safer work. Be that as it may, in the event that you progress admirably, you will before long be trusted by the specialists and designated with better tasks and ventures.
LESS ALLOWANCE
Students will in general be paid not as much as graduates or postgraduates. You acknowledged a temporary job imagining that there won’t be a lot of weight and the remuneration would be adequate for it. However, after you start, you understand the compensation is far lesser than the work merits.
What to do: You may get an inclination that you and a full-time representative is doing likewise a measure of work still you are being paid so less. Be that as it may, understudies are under a transient agreement and are paid less all over the place. On the off chance that you are getting enough learning encounters and it is adding to your candidature for the future, there is no damage relinquishing some of it.
HESITATION IN ASKING QUESTIONS
 A typical understudy issue is posing inquiries. Your greatest delay lies in posing inquiries. Imagine a scenario where posing inquiries will make a feeling that you know nothing. Endless musings meandering through your brain. You are not even sure which of your partners will support you or will they feel upset. You feel reluctant to intrude on them. You may land a great temporary job yet after beginning you understand that the workplace is unnecessarily grave and expert. In such a domain, you think that it’s hard to approach inquiries for the dread of being judged.
What to do: Everybody out there knows that you are an intern so be confident enough to ask questions if you are not sure about something. It is always better to ask questions than to commit a mistake.
UNDERSTANDING THE OFFICE CULTURE
It sure requires some investment to comprehend the workplace culture. Since each hierarchical culture fluctuates from office to office, some have an inflexible structure while others are adaptable. Despite the fact that associations are moving more towards adaptability these days, a few workplaces do have some severe approaches. Of course, there are some interior contrasts as well. During your first long stretches of mingling battles, attempting to watch the authoritative conduct is a test. Your observation is significant here since as indicated by that you progress on mingling.
What to do: In the event that you need to all the more likely comprehend your way of life, take a gander at your organization’s needs. These objectives and activities uncover what your association esteems and what it doesn’t (both unequivocally and certainly). While each representative adds to organizational culture, pioneers have more effect and impact.
UNDERSTANDING TEAMWORK
Understanding cooperation is one of the greatest understudy issues or temporary job difficulties since collaboration in the expert division is a lot of not the same as your tasks at varsity. Miscommunication, error of the genuine goals, various assessments of colleagues are normal, and shift from that of the undertaking bunch work you have done. Accidents inside correspondence additionally influence your work.
What to do: Establish a connection with each team member. As teams become comfortable with one another, their efficiency and productivity will improve when trust and confidence will be built upon each other.
COMPETITIVE CO-INTERNS
 Co-interns seeing each other as contenders can undermine coordinated effort and cooperation. It can even reason laborers to attack each other’s endeavors to excel, prompting doubt and dread. A few understudies get disappointed by a workplace that feels serious. Consistent examination can be debilitating and can in the long run be demotivating.
What to do: Contrary to what it looks like, competitive co-interns make your experience better. You will get to feel real pressure to work better and get noticed instead of just doing random work and completing your internship duration.
EXPLOITATIVE NATURE OF UNPAID INTERNSHIPS
Before, unpaid temporary positions have become a typical practice among organizations. For a temporary job to be scholastically commendable, understudies doing temporary jobs are relied upon to pick up hands-on experience that causes them to build up the information and aptitudes needed to pick up passage into their field. For each understudy who requests an allowance, there is consistently that one individual who is eager to do it for nothing.
The quitting any and all funny business about the unpaid brief position has started late become noticeable as a result of chiefs looking with the desire for complimentary work with no point of enlisting the understudy in the future. Unpaid section level positions have gotten progressively more normal since the continuous financial decline. While evaluating, the improvement of unpaid impermanent positions must be seen thinking about their effect on the aid and the overall economy. There is additionally the disparity factor since just understudies with monetary methods can do them as those understudies that are not affluent need to bring in cash.
BENEFITS OF UNPAID INTERNSHIPS
There are a few occasions where an unpaid temporary position, despite everything, has its points of interest, for example, furnishing understudies with encounters they couldn’t get somewhere else, alongside the chance to set up solid systems administration associations with experts. Incredible proposal letters are another bit of leeway that would enable the understudy to increase all day work with different associations in the field. For non-benefit associations incapable to pay their assistants it is anything but an issue; yet for revenue driven organizations hoping to set aside cash, they could wind up in the center of a claim that would cost them significantly more than if they had consented to pay their assistants. Why are people still interested in adding internships in their resume, even unpaid ones-
GAIING VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
The first, and likely the most significant favorable position of an unpaid temporary job, is the experience it gives. On the off chance that you decide to invest your energy in an unpaid entry level position to pick up information about a specific field, you will definitely profit by the time you spent doing as such. While class time is important, numerous things can be scholarly through temporary jobs that basically can’t be instructed in a study hall setting. Furthermore, it permits you to apply the hypotheses and practices you have learned, in this way giving you a down to earth comprehension of the topic.
ADVANTAGES FOR FUTURE EMPLOYMENT
Presumably the most persuading reason that an understudy picks an unpaid entry level position is the open doors it can offer post-graduation. Numerous businesses offer paid situations to assistants who worked with them before. Organizations decide to do this since they have just built up a solid affinity with the assistant, and furthermore, they don’t need to invest as much energy preparing the understudy about the organization than they would an outside applicant.
ALLOWS STUDENTS TO PURSUE INTEREST
An unpaid temporary job regularly permits you to investigate a specific territory of premium which encourages you to choose whether you need to proceed in this field. This will permit you to acquire explicit information or get familiar with the region you need to zero in on once you graduate.
CONCLUSION
Life of an intern can be tough as you get a very short period to make a long-lasting impression on your supervisors. Internships, whether paid or not, have many challenges. It is very important to make efforts to build a connection with senior employees who will be able to provide you guidance and help you in future job searches and will also help in improving your decision-making skill as being able to work independently is very important in the workplace. You need to always work hard no matter how small the task seems as it helps in building a good work ethic. Take criticism positively as this will improve your work quality. This will help when the students will start interviewing for jobs as they will feel more confident and experienced.
 References
[1]. Â Definition of Internship (as set forth in the Ohio State University Department of Political Science, http://polisci.osu.edu/sites/polisci.osu.edu/files/What%20is%20an%20Internship.pdf (Last visited September 30, 2020).
[2]. “Internship Expectations: What an Internship Is and Is Not – Current Students and Alumni – Career Center – University of Evansville”, https://www.evansville.edu/careercenter/students/EeExpectations.cfm (Last visited September 30, 2020).
[3]. “Unpaid Internships: Unfair and Unethical | The Bottom Line”, https://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2017/02/unpaid-internships-unfair-and-unethical (Last visited September 30, 2020).
[4]. “Internships – Jobs, Reviews, Advice – RateMyPlacement”, http://www.ratemyplacement.co.uk/internships (Last visited September 30, 2020).
BY POULOMI BARIK | KIIT SCHOOL OF LAW