Internship-Based Learning
Internship-based learning is an experiential educational approach that integrates academic knowledge with practical work experience in a professional setting. Integrating internship-based learning is the most effective way to link theoretical learning with the practical skills students need to learn in order to get a job. This experience will allow them to develop relevant skills and gain insights into the real-world applications of their studies.
Learning through internship programs provides a plethora of advantages; they include the acquisition of practical skills, networking, and employability skills. For instance, students are able to use the theoretical knowledge they acquired in class in a real-life situation thereby making them attractive to their future employers. Moreover, internships are usually a precursor to job offers since companies prefer candidates with related experience.
Students have the chance to sought internships on different portals like campus career services, Internet job bourses, and social professional networking pages such as LinkedIn. Joining-oriented fairs particularly for an industry ego could be very beneficial disbursing the leave. The meeting with the professors and ex-students is equally useful as they can potentially introduce them to the right person or the vacant place in the network they belong to.
Hands-on tasks that are practical to their field, for the most part, are the ones students will do while undergoing an internship, usually with the guidance of a supervisor. Interns might take part in projects, go to meetings, and team efforts, getting to know a few cultural differences of the workplace and industry standards. A marketing intern, for example, may help develop a social media campaign, thus having the chance to use approximate knowledge that he/she got from class in real-life situations.
Students need to establish their primary aims, request comments periodically, and behave actively with his/her coworkers to utilize the internship experience properly. Making friends with his/her manager and partners can be helpful for the person to be a mentor besides the use of peer references. Learning how to speak and write about their skills and experiences from the living of these experiences and writing them down is another benefit of the students.