We have all experienced it, regardless of our majors or individual career goals. We open our LinkedIn feeds and suddenly everybody has a Goldman Sachs Internship. People ask about summer plans and give a side eye when they hear someone is planning to lifeguard for the sixth consecutive year. We start to wonder when we all collectively grew up and decided that summer is no longer summer and when networking became a common verb in casual social discourse.
Back in previous decades, the collegiate experience consisted of attending lectures and spending nine months a year in dedicated study. Now, the college experience is a full-time, 24/7 way of being. We spend our time out of class trying to connect with recruiters, sending endless LinkedIn messages, and our search histories are filled with inquiries such as “What is a cover letter?” This pressure is newfound and not one that is understood by older generations, whose common advice is “You have your entire life to work. Why begin the rat race before you have to?”
This is because internships were once an optional treasure, the cherry on top of an already robust sundae of education. Now, they are seen as a rite of passage essential for survival in the modern job forest, where employers wield job descriptions like swords, cutting through the jungle of potential candidates.
Perhaps the primary reason for this dramatic change in student expectation stems from the concept of the “squeaky wheel syndrome.” This proverbial “wheel” refers to the idea that those with more verbiage on their resumes attract the most attention. With everyone recognizing this concept, it only makes sense that the way of “one-upping” the competition would be to achieve academic goals even in the allotted rest period from school. However, once everyone catches onto that notion, it no longer becomes the “extra mile,” but the expected prerequisite to virtually any form of corporate employment.
Secondly, the technological revolution and rise of Artificial Intelligence has surprisingly added more complexity to the workforce than it has lessened the burden. A bachelor’s degree alone used to be more than sufficient enough to land a job, and once that entry level position was gained, there was a promising chance one would receive a promotion and work their way up the “corporate ladder” so that they could provide for a family, own a nice home and enjoy the various luxuries life has to offer. With the technological evolution of sectors such as healthcare and finance, skills that were formerly valued are now made obsolete by the swiftness of new technological innovation.
Coupled together, “Squeaky Wheel Syndrome” and the rise of technological innovation are a perfect recipe for morphing an internship experience from being a casual extracurricular option into a necessary stepping stone for student success in their respective career field. So how do we, as collegiate students, navigate this new and daunting landscape of expectation?
What many students may fail to remember amidst the fervor is that experience is what we make of it. Each effort—a part-time job in retail, leading a college club or volunteering with a service organization—is valid. Each contributes to a larger, multifaceted narrative of a student, the aspiring professional.
So, as this college internship frenzy perpetuates itself like a never-ending hamster wheel, consider stepping off for a moment. Take a deep breath. Reach out for internships if it’s what is interesting—but also explore the breadth of opportunities that enrich character and skills that are not merely confined to the “internship” category. They may not look as appealing on a LinkedIn page, but they will contribute greatly to personal, academic and professional development.
