[1] Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies.
[6] Many large corporations, particularly investment banks, have "insights" programs that serve as a pre-internship event numbering a day to a week, either in person or virtually.
Internships provide current college students with the ability to participate in a field of their choice to receive hands-on learning about a particular future career, preparing them for full-time work following graduation.
[21] Depending on the cost of the school, this is often seen as an unethical practice, as it requires students to exchange paid-for and often limited tuition credits to work an uncompensated job.
Recently a number of non-governmental and employer led bodies have become critical of pupils and students not understanding the ‘world of work’.
but is available for (3rd and 4th year in Scotland), Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland; every student who wishes to do so has a statutory right to take work experience.
In 2011, however, the Wolf Review of Vocational Education proposed a significant policy change that—to reflect the fact that almost all students now stay past the age of 16—the requirement for pre-16 work experience in the UK should be removed.
Placements are limited by safety and security restrictions, insurance cover and availability, and do not necessarily reflect eventual career choice but instead allow a broad experience of the world of work.
[25] Some students work in a particular workplace, perhaps one or two days a week for extended periods of time throughout the year—either for vocation reasons and commitment to alternative curricula or because they have social or behavioral problems.
[citation needed] At university level, work experience is often offered between the second and final years of an undergraduate degree course, especially in the science, engineering and computing fields.
During this time, the students on work placement have the opportunity to use the skills and knowledge gained in their first two years, and see how they are applied to real world problems.
This is an incentive for the student to perform well during the placement as it helps with two otherwise unwelcome stresses: the lack of money in the final year, and finding a job when the university course ends.