SLIIT Student and the Internship
When I was doing my first internship during my 3rd year 1st semester people often asked this. I know most of you might have this experience as well.
“How the hell you manage your studies AND do your University assessments and Exams while doing the internship?”
Well, Unlike other universities and institutes, In Sri Lanka Institute of Information technology, the 3rd year Software Engineering undergraduates must do their internship while doing their semester at the same time. So we have to go to weekend lectures (8 AM to 8 PM Saturday and Sunday) and go to work on weekdays. So yes we don’t have any free time and it’s hard for us as hell!
But, Is it worth it?
Obviously there are ups and downs of doing an internship while studying.
Pros
Money : There is no doubt that doing an internship helps you financially, makes you save a bit of your parents’ money. In Sri Lanka companies give their interns at least an allowance to cover the expenses.
Experience : You lack experience and this is the only way to get it. The best experience comes from internships because you get to do a bit of everything! You get to see and experience the different roles that people play in certain companies and see working life from different perspectives. This is good to take into the working world with you because at times, you will be asked to do various tasks involving different elements of the company. This way, you would have already had a go at things and understood how to multitask.
Communicate : Internships require you to both work individually and within a team. You learn to communicate in new ways to build professional working relationships with people of all ages. This is great because it allows you to be open to other peoples ideas and to get creative in a team in order to build better ideas and ultimately, to build a better company.
Cons
Balance : Juggling work, study, life and other responsibilities can take its toll. Poor time management can be disastrous, particularly if your education is neglected and you fail to meet the course requirements. This is a serious factor.
Stress : Just because you are having your lectures and tutorials on 2 or 3 days a week doesn’t mean that you won’t have the same coursework as the others.
For example a 3rd year SLIIT Software Engineering student has 5 modules in his 1st semester and one is Application Frameworks in which the student has to learn,
- React JS
- Spring boot framework
- Mongo DB
- Node JS
- Rest API technologies
In depth ! And of course you will still be expected to meet deadlines, complete assignments and pass exams, regardless of your circumstances outside of university.
The Bottom line
We as students must do our studies very well in order to get good grades and to get a good job. But, will it be a nightmare with the internship?
The answer is it depends on the student. If he is able to balance both the studies and the work he will get succeeded. This will require enormous amount of commitment, and well of course sleepless nights.
Dear SLIIT,
What I’m suggesting is that to compress the first 3-year curriculum in a way that the lecturers can teach the students it in 2 years and let them do a full year/ 6 months internship without any studies. So that the students will have a huge amount of knowledge when they are applying for internships and can give their full attention for the job (which the employers love to hear). Unfortunately, few companies don’t even like SLIIT students to work with them for their internships because of they think that they will lose focus for the job or for the coursework. Yes, of course, students can self-study but it’s better to have the foundation from the amazing set of lecturers in our university.
So after all study hard, balance your work and organize it. You will be OK! It’s very good to do an internship but be wise and smart!
