Internships vs. Trainings

It was my first day at college. Somethings were happening (they always do). After some time, a teacher came and said, "Three internships are compulsory for completion of your degree program". I do not remember whether he said internships or training. The professors there (at my college), are still confused between those two words because they, probably, never have undergone one. 

Initially I knew nothing about these two, but now I do. Therefore I can now bore you with my knowledge of Internships and Trainings. After reading this post, you will never get confused among those two terms again.

Trainings

Training is any course you take to get specialised in a skill. It can be done via YouTube, Udemy, Coursera, edX or any other website. A training can even be done offline. There are tens of thousands fo businesses present to provide you a training and a "Certificate of Completion of Training". YouTube might be the most popular source to learn any skill. But colleges demand a "Certificate of Completion of Training/Internship", which is not available when learning skills from YouTube. So there are many "institutes" that take advantage of this **compulsion** forced by colleges onto students and they:

1. Charge you money for your training.
2. You complete your training.
3. You get the "Certificate of Completion of Training".

It is not bad to enroll in a training course, but what is bad is companies taking advantage of the compulsion in the name of "Summer Trainings" or "Winter Trainings". 

Also, a training course is rarely free, unless it is being provided by a MOOC but you'll have to pay for the certificate anyways (except sometimes).

Internships

An internship is "kind of" a training in which you are given full exposure of how people work in the industries. e.g. if you are applying for a Software Engineering internship then you will be taught how/what SEs work in the industry, incase you get selected for the internship.

Internships are mostly paid. Paid does not imply that you have to pay for the internship, but the company in which you are interning or the employer will pay you. This is just opposite to a training, in which paid means that you will have to pay for the training.

A non-paid internship is one in which the employer does not pay you, but in both kinds of internships you learn something new or you utilize and sharpen your existing skills.

Stages involved:

1. You apply for the internship.
2. If you get selected, the employer/company will contact you via the e-mail(usually), providing you a confirmation letter, which you have to respond, in case you are still interested in the internship.
3. If you confirm your participation, you will undergo a rigorous training and will use your skills to prove yourself to be an asset to the company. Internships are of varying periods: 15 days, 1 month, 2 months or even 6 months.
4. If you are found hard-working during the internship period, you get a "Certificate of Completion of Internship", and even a "Letter of Recommendation" sometimes, if you ask for.
5. Plus, if the internship is paid, you get a stipend.
6. You grow your connections, because during that period, you are going to work with many people: some like you, some more experienced and some less experienced.

It is a win-win situation for everyone, however cracking a "good" internship is a bit difficult.

TIP: You should prepare a resume before you are applying for any internship. Some internship-applications give you a choice whether to apply resume or not(in case you do not have), but in that case, the priority is given to those candidates who have their resumes attached.

Making resume might seem daunting at first, but all you have to do is advertise yourself with your resume. Your resume is the advertisement for your brand, where you are your brand.

If you have never made a resume before, you can make use of templates available in the word-processing softwares like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Online templates, as far as I have seen are mostly paid. First, they would lure you by stating that you will be able to create your resume for free, which is true, but to export your resume as a PDF or a document, they will charge you money. So, go on with Microsoft Word or Google Docs templates or any other word processing software templates for that matter.

How to find an Internship?

I can't tell you the way to crack an internship, because there is no particular way for it. Work Hard, that's all that I can say, but I can tell you the way(s) to find one:

1. LinkedIn : This is probably the most popular method to find an internship. It is similar to Facebook, except it is a network of professionals, therefore you would rarely find non-professionals here. Grow you connections; this will allow you to contact more people. Since most of the companies have a virtual-presence on LinkedIn, they would be posting internship opportunities, whenever available. To not miss those, you have to follow those companies to allow their posts appear on your feed.
2. Visit the official website of the company, in which you want to apply as an intern. Companies often have a CAREER section listed on their website, that provides you details of all the jobs/internships available. You can directly apply for an internship from here.
3. There are some third-party apps/websites, that allow companies/businesses to list internships they offer and students to register and apply as an intern. This method, however, has never worked for me (as of when I am writing this post), so I do not recommend this method.

This is what most of the "third-party" apps do.

These were all the methods that I knew.

Before you apply

Before you apply for an internship, keep the following points in mind:

1. Have a clear answer to "Why do you want to apply for the internship?". It might be the case that you have to produce a "Certificate of Completion of Internship" for your degree program completion or because you want to gain industry exposure or because you want to learn new skills or that you want to grab a Pre-Placement offer. Whatever the reason may be, it should be clear to you.
2. Avoid internships that are of no particular interest to you, unless you have got no other certificate to show to you college.
3. List down the possible benefits that you will gain after completion of your internship program, if those are the benefits that you want to gain, GO FOR IT.
4. If you are applying for internships from tech-giants like GOOGLE, AMAZON, MICROSOFT  or any other tech-giant company, work hard the exact way, you would for your Placements. The EXACT way or even harder.
5. Have an answer prepared for "Why should we select you as an intern?" or "Why should we hire you?". This is the most annoying question that I've ever found .
6. Most Importantly, have everything prepared. Work on some relevant project, before you apply for an internship. This is because they **always** ask for your previous projects that you've worked upon. This way you will have something to show them. (I have personally seen this, every time I applied for an internship.) 

Hope you've learnt something new today. Case-Studies, if any, have been based on personal experiences.

Moral: **Prepare your resume. It is more important than your health or well-being, for the company.**🤣

If something is still unclear, just comment down, I would love to write another post.

Part 2: Internship Scams