Doing an internship is a great way to get real world work experience while in school or for a short amount of time even after school. They are also a great way for employers to test you out and see how you really work. Some of the best advice I ever received was from woman who told me to choose a company I loved and offer my services (for free) to them for a few months. This was a way to get my foot in the door of a company I really wanted to work for. At the end of that few months, they had created a position for me, even though they hadn’t been looking to hire anyone in the first place.

An interview or even a series of interviews can only give you a certain amount of insight into what a job will be like. I loved all my classes in school that pertained to my major and was pretty sure that I knew what I wanted to do after college so I got a summer internship the summer before senior year. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot about my field, but the most important thing I learned is that I didn’t really want to do it permanently. It was a great way to learn and get to “test drive” a job for three months without further commitment to it.