As the Cambridge school year ends, everyone is looking forward to relax and enjoy the long holiday. But for students at Mother Mary School Complex-Kigali, it’s a different journey they opted to take. A high school internship programme is what their ideal holiday entails.

For most learners, especially in high school, the idea of an internship is frightening if not boring. Holiday is a time to hang academic boots and go savor the sun. An interesting holiday wouldn’t be defined by becoming an intern in some office. The idea of being the tea girl or photocopy guy is not as enticing as sitting behind a television screen watching the latest series, double tapping likes on instagram pages and the innumerable hash tags on twitter.

However, this was not the case at Mother Mary as students opted for a working holiday. Different students visited different institutions to undertake internships in line with their career ambitions, from journalists at The New Times, engineers and architects at Roko Construction, medical experts at King Faisal Hospital, and artists at Inema Art Centre, among others. Proving to the world that internships, especially, at the high school level is more than just time out of school but an eye-opening opportunity to make that decision about what course they would like to take up later in college.

The ultimate goal for such internships is to assist students make that important decision. With a million interests, students find it hard to settle on that actual career for that dream job. The experience helps them learn the career requirements: core subjects required at senior level exams, and the different job descriptions. The factors above help the student to find a career that they are comfortable with both physically and academically. More so, interning at high school is a fantastic strategy to identify their majors as well as book a prospective work place.Internships offer a real-life work experience in a prospective career field. The actual experience is priceless. The ability to work in an actual newsroom was a once in a life-time experience for the group that visited The New Times newsroom. Going through the direct process of collecting information to the final printing of news was beyond the teaching in class. The hands-on activity gives the student "a teach to learn” experience as opposed to the” teach to be taught” experience where the learner only possesses the knowledge but is not able to put it into use. Ken Stamatis, a language instructor, calls this gradual release of information from the know-how to the actual application. The ability to converse and work smoothly with others in the newsroom also proved their capability to mingle, learn and share. The experience gave them the chance to ask, make mistakes and take corrections from the more experienced journalists. The eager-to-learn students left no stone unturned as they learnt at the feet of those who have had an earlier chance and this helped them shape their future careers.

Many shy off from high school internships as they think their lack of experience may cause the boss to look the other way. You never know, you may have skills that can add value to the employer; a company may need an internet pro to help with their social media platform, perform market research and much more! Express your willingness to learn and the determination to work hard and do it to prove them wrong. "Tell me and I forget.

Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn,” said Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States.

The writer is an English Language teacher at Mother Mary School Complex-Kigali