Need help from past or present paid or unpaid interns (I'm doing research).

[blueidealist24]

I'm writing an article on internships for a Canadian online non-profit newspaper, The Canadian (just for the record, this isn't the same online publication I referred to in my last thread).

 

I'm trying to get quotes from people about both the positives and negatives of internships, so I'd appreciate if you would fill out this short survey about your internship experience. It doesn't matter if you are Canadian or not.

 

First name (optional):

 

Last name (optional):

 

Country:

 

Company you interned with (optional):

 

Industry:

 

Paid or unpaid:

 

Positive or negative comments about your internship (do not have to provide both, but can if you like):

 

I'm 99% sure this article will be accepted, so I will post a link to it after it is published.

 

Thanks for your input!

[happy_snapper]

First name: Pete

Country: UK

Company: Broadcom

Industry: Semiconductor manufacturing (firmware development)

Paid

Comments (extract what you want):

I worked as a paid intern instead of my 3rd year of university. This may not be the kind of internship you're interested in, but you can have it anyway.

 

Pros:

Work is hard to come by without experience. My internship gave me a year "in the real world" on my CV. Working on real products, talking with real customers, earning real money. I wouldn't have my current job without it.

I worked with a group of highly experienced engineers and I learnt much more on the job than I did during year 1,2 and 4 of my degree.

Pay was very good (probably exceptional by intern standards), only a bit below the average for a full-time graduate-level engineer.

If you want to talk about internships as part of university degrees (no idea how common that is worldwide), I'd also say that taking a year out of assignments and exams was brilliant for me. Personally I found university more stressful, so it was like a holiday for me.

 

Cons:

I had a minor case of the old "give the intern the **** jobs". I didn't have to make the coffee, no, I had to do the testing. The repetitive, button-pushing, screen-comparing, report-writing, procedure-following job that nobody else wanted to do. To be fair, I'm sure I could have asked to be assigned something different, besides, testing wasn't all I did for the year. I didn't really mind, so I just got on with it.

I can't think of anything else

 

I think it was probably the most important and worthwhile year of my entire life. I'd rate it above the three years I spent in university combined.

I don't know if this is helpful for you.

[Crispin7891]

Country: Spain

 

Company you interned with (optional): Ministerio de Educación de Aragón

 

Industry: Education

 

Paid or unpaid: Paid

 

Positive or negative comments about your internship (do not have to provide both, but can if you like): A great experience to learn how to teach better while working directly with a Spanish school. Lots of great professional contacts for any educational questions I may have. A great chance to travel abroad and learn about another culture and language.

 

Negative would be poor communication within the school, and the lousy Spanish government offices and services and hours. It's very difficult to get any real business done with all the passing around responsibility and poorly planned processes they put you through.

 

Hope that helps!