There’s something to be said of the feeling of accomplishment one experiences after completing an internship. Long hours, plenty of hard work, and it’s finally finished. Celebration time, right? Companies will be lining up to offer me a job!

Wait, I only get to add ONE MEASLY LINE to my resume?

Ah, yes. Around here, we measure the worth of an activity by whether it is worth the effort to recite the benefits on a resume.

Shame, isn’t it? (Well, better put that experience at the top, then, because recruiters only read the top third of resumes, anyway.)

And, while, yes, you added a single line, and, perhaps you are feeling just a teeny bit hollow, you might realize that that one line has quite a lot of meaning, and not just to a prospective employer.

Hopefully your internship has taught you some valuable skills. Hopefully you learned things, were able to see what life in your preferred work environment will really be like. Hopefully your field of study and intellectual curiosity were bolstered and encouraged. Maybe this experience solidified what you really want to do in life.

Or maybe it was meaningless.

Completely, utterly, mind-numblingly useless.

Maybe you pushed papers, stapled, copied, and collated, or, even worse, went for coffee runs while your reluctant supervisor thanked his lucky stars that you weren’t getting paid.

Then this accomplishment might seem like a relief of sorts. Relief that you never have to see that place again.

Then maybe I could see what it might not be worth the effort.

But I still think there some knowledge to be gained, some insight to be revealed.

You can at least say that you’re now quite proficient in the use of typical office materials. And, I guess, you might do a kick-ass stapling job.

Employers would be all over that.

But, for one moment, forget about the resume.

Ignore that piece of paper that seems to mean so much, but barely gets read. Ignore this arbitrary list of your schooling, jobs, and accomplishments, only meant to sound good.

How about you?

Did you grow as a person?

Were you able to really find what it is that you want to be doing with your time? Or do you still need to keep searching?

Did you find this experience worthwhile?

Resumes can only show so much. But what really shows is your skill set and intellectual maturity. Your ability to know what you want and take all the steps to accomplish that goal.

So maybe your internship wasn’t too helpful with this plight. Maybe it was a waste of time. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll learn from this experience. You’ll understand what kind of work environment you’ll want to avoid so that you can be as successful as possible in the future. Maybe you don’t quite know what you want to do yet, and that’s ok.

Find yourself an environment where you can grow as a person, whether that be an internship, part-time job, or even service to your community.

Add that experience to your life.

And a couple of lines to your resume.