Chances are that you will not be paid for any internship that you take. You might be thinking that you need a job rather than an unpaid internship. This isn't an unreasonable thought; after all you're probably living on ramen noodles, canned beans, and eating out of a metal cake pan with no silverware. Chances are you don't have a microwave or stove either, so who knows how you're heating up the ramen. Illegal wood burning stoves aside, you need to find a way to complete an internship.
So here's the question, what can you sacrifice? Can you go to part time on your job? These are all very good and very important questions. What you might do is, wait until your senior year to do your internship. If you cannot go to part time, you might quit your job altogether, take the internship, and pray you don't get evicted before graduation. No, that was not a joke; it's been done before and more times than you would think.
If you're going to get into one of these internship opportunities and become one of the many career interns, you need to put your resume together. One of the best parts of going for an internship is that the employer will understand if you have no employment experience. After all, that's the point of becoming a career intern, right?
When you finally do join the industry, you're going to find that employers expect you to hit the ground running. Not only will you need to know the theory behind the job, you will need to know how everything works, all of the procedures, and how to put your knowledge to practical use. The only way you're going to know these things is if you suffered through an unpaid internship at some point in the past.
Though they don't pay you, try not to think of it as a sacrifice. Imagine that they are paying you, but they're paying you in knowledge. This is knowledge that you can use down the road when you apply for your first real job. The company will also serve as a good reference if you complete the internship! It's amazing what a good reference can do for you on an application or resume.
As you can see, there are many benefits to becoming a career intern. Yes, it's going to be extremely hard, but there's nothing easy in life that's worth doing now is there? There are going to be times when you feel like quitting, which is normal. But instead of quitting think about the paycheck you're going to earn once you've graduated and you're living in that nice house you've always dreamed of. There's nothing that feels quite as good as making it big and knowing that you can support your loved ones. So do the best you can!
