As I anticipate and anxiously await the beginning of my internship, I’ve been thinking about all those traditional questions they ask you at your interview. Particularly, what do you hope to learn from this internship?

I remember what I said in the interview so that they were clear about why I wanted to work for the company, to show that I understood what the job entailed and how I could do it well, to express my excitement for the opportunity, etc. Just like interviews, internships are just as much for the company as they are for my professional growth. But really what are the benefits of internships?

1. Practice.

Practice in applying for jobs. Practice in getting turned down. Practice in interviewing skills. Practice in business communication. We’ve all heard the saying practice makes perfect. The process of finding, applying for, interviewing, navigating the right things to say to acquire internships is an art and a science. But the more experience you have, the easier it gets. That way, when you are actually looking for a job, you’re not aimlessly meandering the “real world,” you know exactly what you need to do and by what date. You’ve learned (like I have) that no matter how many jobs you apply for you’ll hear back from the ones with connections. You’ll know how long to wait before you start pestering the company about not having heard back. You’ll know how and to whom to construct your emails. You’ll know that even though it’s extremely awkward to call up a family friend you’ve never met or email a Scripps alum you met on vacation, that’s how you find an internship. And that’s how you find a job. Practice. Practice. Practice.

2. Networking.

Just like when you go to school, you have classmates, when you start working, you get colleagues and bosses. These people, these resources, are the connections you will use later to help find you a job, are your references in future applications.

3. Experience.

You get experience in the “real world” with some training wheels. You get your foot in the door at type of company, job, career you think you are interested in. You get to see for yourself what corporate culture is like. I once worked in a small office. There was a small team of women and a considerable amount of gossip. I really didn’t like that. It’s one thing to talk about someone when they have failed miserably or done extremely well, but this gossip was about nothing. I was really disheartened and frustrated by it. It’s because of my experiences last summer that I started asking about corporate culture during interviews.  I learned something about the “real world” and about myself in that office and I can only wait to see what new lessons I will learn this summer.

4. Corroboration.

Just as I mentioned earlier, interviews and internships are as much for the company as they are for you. They provide personal and professional development. As a result, the internship functions as a means of personal and career corroboration that you are on the right track: that you are interested in the field or not, that you want to work for a small or large company, etc. It provides you with experience to allow you as the intern to decide what you want and don’t want in the future. When I was deciding on a major, there were too many options. But because it’s just as important to know what you don’t want as it is to know what you want, you can cross out potential options and it makes the final choice easier.

Will my internship be like all the others? Since I haven’t started, I can’t really answer that question yet. However, I know my summer internship will have all of these components. But in what capacity and how I will grow, well we’ll both have to wait a little longer for that answer.