Importance of internships in the first year

Internships plays a are very important for the law student. An internship is a short-term working opportunity offered by a business or organisation to people, usually students or recent graduates who wish to get experience in a specific industry or subject. Internships are intended to offer practical training, skill development, and exposure to the workplace. Depending on the organisations regulations and local legislation, they may be paid or unpaid and range in length from a few weeks to several months.?

The biggest advantage of internships is that they provide an opportunity to students to learn practical knowledge apart from bookish knowledge.?

Most of the law student experiences the greatest enthusiasm and excitement for all of the everyday aspects of an average law student's life during their first year of law school. In any event, the first-year internship is the most promising in terms of its potential for pure fun.

How to find your first internship

Getting Internships at respectful may not be as easy as it looks but can be done in some meaningful ways.?

A fresher who has just joined a law college should try to first intern in some local organisations. Generally, a fresher who has joined the law college should try to do online internships at an NGO. The work at NGOs may include some basic content writing,? blog writing, and the primary work will be Crowdfunding.?

The biggest advantage of interning at an NGO is that as a fresher who has just joined a law college and has minimal or no knowledge about law and its related aspects, then such internships help them in building some great connections and help them in learning some basic skills like communication skills, networking skills, etc. which are required for a successful career in law.

In my first year in law school, I interned with an NGO named Mushkurahat Foundation, which was primarily concerned with providing education to poor and orphan kids. My basic works include getting donations for the said cause, motivating people to help poor kids, and promoting the NGO at different forums. Due to this internship, I got well connected with some seniors of my college, and some other prominent persons in the society as I tried to approach them to get donations. This helped me in learning some basic communication skills. I got this internship through a recommendation from my friend who was going to intern at the same organization.??

The primary things that I learned through this internship were

1. Networking Skills – As I approached various colleagues, classmates, seniors, college faculties, and other professionals for donations, this helped me in getting connected with them

2. Communication Skills – As I tried to motivate people to donate funds for the cause, my communication skills improved due to participating in that internship

3. Social Media Marketing – As we launched some social media campaigns for getting donations and motivating people to invest money on the education of poor kids, I learned some skills related to social media management, using social media as a tool to raise funds, etc.

Ways to Get Internships –?

1. Create a LinkedIn Account – Students should create an account on LinkedIn in the first year. LinkedIn is a professional app where various NGOs, Legal organizations, companies, etc. post internships, and job opportunities, and there are some accounts like Legal Edge Law School which provide regular updates about legal internships and job opportunities.

2. Contact to internships and Placement Cell of the college. Most of professional law colleges have a dedicated internship and Placement Cell in the college. The student should try to contact them when they need any internships.

3. Contact to seniors of college – The students should try to connect with the seniors of their college. As a senior, they must have gone through various internships at and when required. Hence for a fresher, they can act as a great medium in getting internship recommendation?

4. Search Online – The student should search online about available internship opportunities in the market. There are various online web pages that provide regular updates on the available opportunities. Some of the companies and legal organizations directly provide details related to available internship opportunities on their websites?

5. Attend Certificate Courses – The student should try to attend the certificate cohort as and when required. The biggest benefit of certificate cohorts is that such cohorts at the one hand provide relevant skills and knowledge to the one who attends and on the other hand they provide direct internships to the top performers. For example, Legal Edge Law School has introduced various certificate cohorts at minimal prices which offer opportunities to students to get internships under Top AORs, Legal Firms, etc.?

Things to Consider before applying for an internship –?

1. Type of Organisation – The first and foremost thing a person should consider before applying for an internship is to know the name of the organization, their basic work, the type of organization, etc. In other words, they should gather some knowledge about the organization.?

2. Work of the intern – Then the student should try to know about the expected work they have to do. Their work can be of various kinds and that depends on the type of organization. A student should join the organization by getting some basic information about the work of the organization so that the work is as per expectation of the Intern.

3. Benefits the intern is getting – Then the student should consider the benefits he/she is getting from the internship. In the first year students will rarely get any opportunity for a paid internship, so he/she should get to know about the skills he/she can learn through this internship.

Conclusion?

Internship is? an important aspect of law school as it? provides practical knowledge to individuals and helps them in knowing the professional working environment the biggest benefit of interning from the first year itself is that it helps one to know his/her area of interest in the Law field.

In such a competitive environment and field, a student should work to gain relevant skills and knowledge from the first year itself and internships are sure-shot ways to do the same skills. As in law college we only get to learn the theoretical part while internships provide the practical knowledge to the student which in the end is required for a successful career in law.?

For getting regular updates related to available internship opportunities, and other opportunities one may? join WhatsApp groups of Legal Edge Law School?

This article presents the insights of?Harsh Mittal, a IInd year law student from Lloyd Law College. The author's perspectives and opinions are entirely based on their personal viewpoint.

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