<p>I was wondering if internships are important for engineers. Well my main goal is to get into a good grad school so I'm focusing more on research positions and school projects. Would not getting one hurt my chances for grad school? What if I didn't go to grad school and wanted to get a job after graduation. </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Interships is experience, so it is very important. I guess research positions are pretty good as well. Interning with a company would probably be better if you want to work in industry. Not sure about the grad school thing though.</p>
<p>Based on what my profs tell me, real world work experience isn't that important, especially if you have research experience.</p>
<p>I am at my first engineering internship and I think the experience is very useful. Even if you plan to go to grad school or into academia, don't you want a taste of the industry side?</p>
<p>Sure, if you're going to grad school, research experience > work experience. But if you take a look at some graduate student profiles at Berkeley, for example, most of them have had internships in addition to work they did with professors as undergraduates. </p>
<p>Also, plenty of PHd students worked a few years in industry after undergrad. So I think grad schools have respect for internship experience also.</p>
<p>The engineering department representatives at my orientation really stressed getting involved in projects and internships for networking and work experience. Internships can give a student a glimpse of the career and the type of work engineers and managers go through. Plus they give you connections with people and the companies which you could possibly work for in the future.</p>
<p>Would it be more beneficial to work at multiple internships, or continue working at the same company each summer?</p>
<p>I'm currently interning at a medium-size software company and they want to know if we're coming back next year by the end of the summer. The work I do here is very relevent to my degree, but I'd like to try working in other areas of the market.</p>
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Would it be more beneficial to work at multiple internships, or continue working at the same company each summer?</p>
<p>I'm currently interning at a medium-size software company and they want to know if we're coming back next year by the end of the summer. The work I do here is very relevent to my degree, but I'd like to try working in other areas of the market.
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<p>Loyalty is still well respected and usually rewarded. However, as soon as you feel that you are underemployed, not being utilized, or that this is not the job/career for you, then it's time to move on. It also takes time to learn the company's ways of doing things and getting onto meaningful long term assignments. Therefore, staying with the same company is useful for getting better assignments. </p>
<p>While the number of contacts you make is important, the quality of the contacts will be more important for landing you jobs. It doesn't matter if you get 200 business cards by the time you graduate, if they don't remember who you are, they are worthless to you (and you to them).</p>