Benefits to Have Working Experience for Undergraduate Students

Nowadays, more and more students have taken part-time jobs before entering university. This has resulted from the belief in both their parents and themselves that having some work experience before they graduate from the university will be beneficial for their future. In my opinion, I agree that having work experience as an undergraduate student will have an advantage in my future to a large extent. In this essay, some evidence of the benefits will be pointed and discussed.

One of the reasons proving that having work experience for the undergraduates will be beneficial for their future is that they will be able to choose the job that they can adapt quickly with the support of some work experience in their university life before entering the society. According to Highfliers Research, the major graduate companies have offered job placements to university students for them to decide the type of job they are most suitable and also to provide the students with the opportunity to have experiences in working in the business area as their academic learning. This can be further supported with the evidence provided by Gore and Nelson which stated that the students are able to understand organisational structure and behaviour, and the skills they will need to develop to be able to put into practice when they have a job in the future. However, on the other hand, some jobs depend mostly on the academic skills which the students are taught in school, and thus they did not provide as much job placement as compared to other businesses. One example is the Accounting and professional services. This may be because this job is relying mostly on the academic theory that was taught in the university, so they do not require much of job experience. On top of that, accounting is a job that is most suited to professionals in this subject area, so means that the work experience in other business areas will be irrelevant to this job as an accountant. This means that having job experience in many situations will not necessarily increase the chance of them getting jobs that only need specialists in specific areas. However, by not providing many job placements for undergraduates will decrease the interest of the graduates in this job when they are applying for work after graduation. This means that giving less opportunity for the undergraduates to try this job will lead to them not consider applying for this particular job when they graduate as they lack both interest and job experience in this area. This may impact the future of the student, as this may be the job they are most suitable to if they had the interest in it and was given a chance to experience it.

Another evidence to show that having work experience before graduating will have advantage on the students’ future career is that graduated who have had paid internships before graduation is more likely to have a secure full-paid job to apply to after they graduate. According to an American study carried out by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the graduates who have had paid internships are the most successful by securing a full-paid work, whereas the graduates with unpaid internships are only better than those who have not had any work experience at all. This shows that with some work experience before graduation will increase that chance of obtaining a secure job with decent payments. This may be because the employers are more likely to trust the ability of working in the graduates with some experience and have had earned some money as they may think those who worked for an unpaid internship or have not worked at all may not be as hardworking since they may not have the right skills to complete the tasks that are allocated. However, in contrast to that, students with unpaid internships are reported to end up with an even lower salary at the beginning of their jobs compared to those who did not have any job experience at all. This then became evidence showing that having work experience not always will benefit the student. According to Baker, she has been seeing graduates with lots of short-term internships, and none of them is turned into long term jobs, this gave her the feeling that the information of their placements are just there to fill up the space in the students’ CVs so to make it seem more attractive. Hence, having many short-term work experiences may not be appealing to employers in all situations. Despite that, Gault, et al. have shown that those students with some internship during university obtained a higher level of job satisfaction for their first job and current job. It has resulted from the satisfaction with the overall salaries and benefits they received are higher compared to those who did not have any internship at all. Furthermore, Grunwald debated with Baker, saying that the blame should fall on the employers who have provided the students with much short-term internship. In her opinion, the students have already done their best to adapt to the society which job experience is required in most jobs and yet having short-term, unpaid internships is still not good enough.

Last but not least, another benefit of having job experience towards the future of the undergraduate is that having work experience made the students more confidence and better prepared for their future after graduation. Highfliers research reported that more than one-third recruiters found out that the graduates are mostly successful in their selection process for their graduate courses if they have had some job experience before graduation. This is because having some internship will help the students to gain some skills that they are unlikely to learn in academic lessons. Since during the internship period, the students are getting many contacts with expertise in a particular business area. Thus the experience passed on from the expert is more valuable and useful compared to listening to a lecture at school. Moreover, the students with job experience are reported to be more responsible towards their future and job development compared to those who only have knowledge gained in classrooms. This is shown by Bemstein  as students have reported being more open-minded and also outgoing so to be able to take more responsibilities. However, since these findings are out-dated, the insights of the effectiveness of having internships are based on the expectations of students before graduation and not the actual outcome for the post-graduation careers. Thus this made the result unreliable as it is based only on assumptions at that time. Fortunately, this result is confirmed by a recent research by Highfliers Research, proving that graduates are confident in their recruiting process since they have had the similar experience when they take the internships.

In conclusion, I think that there is more evidence that proves that with job experience before graduate will have an advantage in the future career of the students. The graduates can develop skills outside of classrooms and will have the opportunity to apply it in real cases. Statistics report has also shown that the earnings of an experienced graduate are higher than the ones with zero internships. Despite there are some exceptional cases in which job experience did not matter much on the employability of the graduate, for example too many short-term placements and looking for jobs which only specialists are required like accountants. The evidence showing the benefits still out weight the few cases that go against as those against are only rare cases that only stands for the minority’s opinion.