This article looks at the value in interns in the tech sector, which today is going beyond simply doing the menial tasks they were relegated to in the past. I
wrote about the same subject, in fact, last week when I spoke to
Cisco about its internship program.
The simple fact is that whatever interns IBM and UNIVAC employed in the old days were as new to the technology as could be. Today, things have changed. "Cloud" is practically a household word, even to teenagers, and thus the transition from personal use of technology to professional use is much smoother.
Since these interns have had half a lifetime to think about these technologies on their own time, they can often bring a new, fresh perspective to the workplace. Quite simply, if a big IT company is having its interns make them coffee, it's wasting their talent and missing out on a lot.