When you get to college you start hearing the word internship a lot more. You begin meeting people who are doing an internship and you hear your teacher talk about how important it is to help you get your foot in the door. At the end of sophomore year, I began to ask myself if internships were everything they were all cracked up to be... if they really would be worth my while and if having an internship would help jumpstart my career. Now, having a few different internships myself I can answer the question that filled my mind as a younger college student.

In the movies, interns get shown as the bottom of the totem-pole, the coffee-go-getters, and the ones that have to do the things no one else wants to do. In my experience, people want interns because you are legitimately needed and give you projects to do that has to be done in order to move forward. Interns are special in the eyes of the employer because they want the fresh insight that you have and they want to try to stay up-to-date with what your professors tell you.

Interning has boosted my confidence in my skill set. Before I interned I knew what I wanted to do with my career but I wasn't sure that my skill set would get me where I wanted to go. Though interning I have learned how to do many things that I didn't know I even needed to know. I have been able to soak up all the information I have been given at each internship I have had has given me the confidence that I need to be able to be confident in an interview. Because of my internships, I can say I have personal experience working in my field and I know I can be an asset to any team.

Interning has broadened my network and taught me how to network with people in a professional setting. They say practice makes perfect and I used to be so nervous before I would enter any professional setting, but with my internships, I have become more comfortable with talking to my co-workers and even people higher up in the company just because I have had practice doing it.

Interning has allowed me to see the professional world and help me pinpoint exactly what it is that I want to do when I graduate college. I now know exactly what it is I am going after and it makes everything a little bit easier because graduation is coming up, and although I am not 100 percent sure exactly where I'll be I what kind of jobs I am looking for what I will and will not be willing to do when I get my diploma.

So going back to ask myself the same questions that puzzled me a few years ago, is putting yourself through an internship worth it? It totally is! I have gained so much from my internships and I am grateful for every opportunity that has been given to me. Interning is hard work, but if you put your all into it, you just never know what you might get out of it!