Is an internship necessary for a career in graphic design?

Is it better for my career to get an ID internship for 6 months and extend my instructional design graduate master's program by one semester, or to graduate in 6 months and take a regular job?

• Considering I have a long non-ID resume with some trainer experience.

• Answer:

  I've hired many Instructional Designers for my job. It's difficult to determine how well a candidate will actually perform on the job. A solid understanding of the theories of instructional design are critical, but if you can't translate those theories into application, you're not going to do well in the field. A way for me to determine if you both understand and can apply instructional design, is to see your work history. It can be very difficult for somebody who has just graduated to show they can do ID work in a real-world setting. It goes beyond just being able to do school projects. Can you work well with others? Can you understand and meet business needs? Can you build good working relationships? If I'm looking at a resume, the only thing I look at for education is a) what kind of degree, and b) where you went to school. The second isn't even that important, just interesting. So for me, if you sent me your resume, and I saw you worked six months at a company (the bigger name, the better), and you have a letter of recommendation from a manager and/or co-workers from that company, that is going to hold a LOT more weight than just a degree alone. My advice is to find a big company that is well known for their training and development, and do anything you can to intern with them.