1. Test Drive Careers. Internships provide an opportunity to experiment and test out various career options. Real-world experience helps you make more educated choices about the types of tasks that motivate you, the organizational cultures you fit best within, and places where you feel most alive and engaged.

2. Increase your employability. Internships allow you to develop the skills which make you career ready! It provides valuable experience for you to build and include on your resume. Even if you aren’t offered a position, the experience gained makes you marketable!

3. Connect the classroom to the real world. You invest over 300 hours in academic classroom experience. Internships allow you to put those theories and knowledge to practice in a very practical way. Test out all that book knowledge!

4. Network with the people in your industry. Developing professional contacts in the field can help you get hired and ahead in your career. It is what you know, but also WHO you know that makes a difference. Many companies provide incentives to their employees for recommending individuals to fill open positions.

5. Get your foot in the door. Most companies will hire successful interns over candidates they’ve just met or who apply online. Every organization is different, but it is estimated in most industries that employers offer full-time positions to over 60% of interns who successfully complete their internships. This is the trend because it costs employers much less to train and onboard a proven intern than it costs to hire someone completely new.

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