Internships in Engineering Colleges – Need of the Hour

As per recent surveys and reports it is understood that thirty seven crore jobs are likely to be lost in the technology sector globally, within 3 - 5 years. The reason for this may be due to the advent of "new technologies" like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT), Data Analytics, Automation, Robotics. "New technologies" have been around since last four decades and they are basically new wine in the old bottle. For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was first envisaged in the early 1960s in the top educational institutions abroad. AI machines that exhibited intelligence were built as early as 1965. However, this technology was confined to academics and did not find wide applications at that time in Industry, Government or society. As decades passed this technology has become presently very relevant in many contexts. With huge volumes of data being available and computing power having increased tremendously the application of AI to real life problems with meaningful outputs has become very relevant. Many organizations in future may have to adapt to such technologies in order to remain globally competitive. For example, the use of AI and Machine Learning in retail could help the consumer source a particular product at a very competitive price at the same time benefiting from very good quality.

An Internship consists of exchange of services for experience between the intern and the organization. Internships are used to determine if the intern still has an interest in that field after the real life experience. An internship can be used to create a professional network that can assist with letters of recommendation or lead to full employment opportunities. The benefit of bringing an intern in to a full employment is that they are already familiar with the company, and they need little or no training. Internships provide current college students the ability to participate in a field of their choice and to receive hands-on-experience about a particular technology. Internships also prepare the student for full time work following graduation, which will benefit the organization at large in the long run.

Internships may be paid or un paid. Sometimes organizations may also demand non disclosure agreements from students who want to be interns, so that closely guarded technological secrets may not be leaked. Rules vary from country to country about when intern should be regarded as employees. Employers benefit from these internships, because they often recruit employees from their best interns, who have known capabilities, thus saving time and money in the long run. Paid internships are common in professional fields including medicine, science, engineering, law, architecture, accounting and finance. Internship may be also part time or full time. A typical internship lasts between two and six months, but can be shorter or longer, depending on the organization. In paid internships, the intern is expected to bring ideas and knowledge from the college in to the company. Research internships are also possible and these are done by students who are in the final semester. With this kind of internships, a student does research in a particular area for a company. The company can have something that they feel they need to improve, or the student can choose a topic within the company themselves. Unpaid internships are typically through non-profit charities and think tanks which often have unpaid voluntary positions. Partially paid internships are becoming popular wherein students are paid in the form of a stipend. Stipends are typically a fixed amount of money on a regular basis. Another type of internships growing in popularity are virtual internships, in which the intern works remotely and not physically present at the job location. These are typically taking place in the IT arena where a company is dealing with outsourcing of technology.