How many internships should a University student have before graduation?

Hi Mei!

This depends on what career path do you have in mind of pursuing after you graduate or intend to explore before you graduate. If you already have a certain career in path in mind, taking on 1-2 internships in a relevant role would help boost your chance of employability after you graduate in similar roles as well. However, if you have not decided on what you want, taking on internships during your summer/winter break would be a good chance to explore different industries and roles. The skills you have learnt in each one would definitely come in handy for your future graduate role.

Having 1-2 internships on your resume would be beneficial and it serves as a good conversation piece for future job interviews as you can give real life examples on your achievements as well we working styles.

Personally, internships are a good way for me to learn outside of a classroom setting, which I believe I thrive better in a workplace setting compared to a classroom one. This serves as an opportunity for me to learn something new out of my major (because I'm still uncertain on what I want to do after I graduate), learn new skills and meet new people!

Most internships are 10 weeks (during summer/winter breaks) or 6 months if you can afford to take an LOA off school.

Hope this helps! :)

Hey Mei!

There isn't a fixed number to the internships you should have before graduation. I took up to 4 internships before graduation, 1 internship every school holidays from year 1 to 2. I skipped Year 3 holidays because of the heavy workload :/

To answer your questions:

I would think that internship experience is a key to getting hired for a junior position aside from jobs that requires a 'test'. I think that's how they know if you have the knowledge required to take on the new role (as what Shaun mentioned)

I can't say much about what the HR focuses on but my gut feel tells me that they will hire you because you have the skills they want and not because your grades are good.

Duration of stay probably won't affect much because internship normally lasts 3 - 6 months.

My Thoughts

I see internships as an opportunity to try out and see what type of company I prefer. Hence, I took it as a chance to try out agencies, SME, and MNC. It definitely is also a good way to see if you're comfortable with working in the sector that you're studying.

Have a set of goals each time you join the company. Mine was to see the culture fit across different types of company and to see if I like the work challenges they gave me as an intern.

All the best :)