Thoughts on taking time off for an internship

[truste1]

What's everyone's opinion on taking time off from school for an internship? This is my situation:

I left the college I was at this semester, spent this semester taking classes at a local college. I didn't really get my applications in for the Fall because I wasn't too sure where I actually wanted to go. I ended up getting one in to a university near DC  and I'll probably get into it. It's an OK school but not the best.

But then I was thinking. While I've been home I had an internship, and then this summer I'll be taking my science at a top science institution. so those things look good. I could probably get a fall semester internship and take another semester "off" and possibly transfer into a top tier institution. I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of being a semester or more behind. I'm inclined to think that an additional year of college won't matter greatly, especially if my time was spent in productive things.

[iago]

I did a total of 12 months of internship throughout my university career. It meant that I did 5.5 years instead of 4 to get my degree, but it was the most valuable thing I ever did. I wouldn't have had any of my post-graduation jobs without the internship.

Yeah, I ended up behind. But I learned a ton of stuff, got some direction to my career, and met people who ended up giving me a job in the future. I'm personally very good at maintaining relationships with people -- I frequently go back to my old places, including places I did my internships and even my min. wage jobs from before university, just to catch up with people. As a result, I know I can easily get any of my jobs back, if I needed one.

So yeah, I say absolutely go for it. It's the best thing I ever did. :)

[warz]

Sure. I interned at Nortel for about a year. I was attending school while doing it, though. The internship really didn't leave me much time for school, so I got way behind in studies, homework and my grades were suffering. I also was splitting work time with school time, so my productivity at work always felt like I was cutting it short because I'd leave for school. So, for my type of work personality, it wasn't a great thing for me to be doing because I like to give 100% effort to 1 thing and not really split up my time with different things like school and work. Well, I guess I've been going to school and working ever since high school, but I feel like there's a difference between a part time job somewhere and a job at a large company like Nortel or something. I just recently turned down an internship opportunity at Bank of America doing some type of technology research/programming thing they came to me with. I've decided this time around I'm just going to focus entirely on school and wrap up this last year as solid as I can.

My advice would be this, if you're not doing much anyways and feel like you'd like to take a break from school then yea, go for the internship. An internship gives you relevent experience towards your resume and builds connections to people in the real business world. But, keep in mind that a lot of these places give internships because you say you're going to be completing schooll and getting a degree soon. So, the degree is really the higher priority.

[Sidoh]

It seems like a lot of the companies that do co-ops also do summer internships.  Have you considered doing that instead?  I'm fairly confident that the connections I've made during summer internships are more than sufficient to get me going in industry right when I graduate.

As long as you can be sure that you'll come back and finish off your degree, I think it's a great idea.

[iago]

It seems like a lot of the companies that do co-ops also do summer internships.  Have you considered doing that instead?  I'm fairly confident that the connections I've made during summer internships are more than sufficient to get me going in industry right when I graduate.

As long as you can be sure that you'll come back and finish off your degree, I think it's a great idea.

Yeah, that's what I did. Our school arranges it so you can alternate academic/work terms. So you do work in spring, school in summer, work in fall, school in spring, work in summer, school in fall, then graduate half a year late. I ended up ending on two academic terms, so I finished in spring.

[dark_drake]

You could also get academic credit for internships depending on the company and school. I know here at Wyoming, a person can get up to 6 credit hours for an internship. Kind of an aside, but the only problem I have with this is the fact the school makes the student pay tuition and fees even though they're not actually using the university to learn.  :-\