So, you are in your last semester. You drank enough alcohol, ate enough frozen pizzas, and probably have participated in more than your fair share of other "recreational activities" to officially call it a day. And now, you have to start your internship.

Although this seems like an easy thing to do - after all, you have been living the last four or 5 years of your life on 2 hours of sleep and 50 Advils a week anyway - being an "out-of-state" student can make this a real pain. I know this because I lived it during my internship. One of my professors told me to start thinking about where I wanted to do my education internship. I was like, "just put me in a school where kids aren't gonna kill me and there are other teachers my age that I can hang out with."

My professor's response was, "I wish it was that easy. You will have to do some research, find a teacher you can mesh with at a school you like, and then let us know and we will make some contacts for you." I am from "out-of-state", I don't know anybody in the school systems, and I have spent my last four years partying at the beach. Where and when did I have the time or opportunity to hang out with professional people? All my "education major" friends were, for the most part, local to the area.

They all completed their internships with their old elementary and high school teachers. They all had an "in" somewhere. And, to make matters worse, half of them conquered their internships with flying colors...while hardly enduring any real pain and having to do any real work. On the other hand, I had no place to go to find information about the local schools - or at least the kind of real-life information I was looking for. I wanted to know which teachers were going to make my life hell and which would not. I wanted to do my internship with a teacher who could be tolerant that I was trying to juggle college graduation parties, relationships, and being broke.

This kind of information is not easy to find, especially when your not local to the area. When it comes to being an "out-of-state" student and having to complete your internship away from home, I can offer you some advice - be realistic about what you have going on in your life at that moment in time and be resourceful - talk to your friends who know the community and more importantly, ask them the right questions.

Do some internet research...believe it or not, there are websites that host blogs and forums where people share their experiences, good or bad. In fact, www.internshipsdirectory.com is a good spot for people to go and share "real-life" experiences about their internships, while also providing links to internship postings. And last but not least, don't go to a college in the sticks of SC if you are born and raised in NJ.

http://www.internshipsdirectory.com/

Source: www.articlesbase.com