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I am a college student currently considering a part-time internship offer from a decent company in my area which offered a 6-month long internship (mid-February to late July). Although I would enjoy the opportunity I'd much rather intern at a bigger and more prestigious company abroad – but I'm not done with the interview process yet (it will take one more month because interviews are done in batches, and I'm not sure if it would be okay for the other company to wait so long for me to make a decision about the internship offer).

My parents have suggested to just accept the current internship offer, finish the interview process with the other company and in case I get an offer just leave the current company. The other internship would start mid-may and end in late August.

Is this an okay thing to do to just leave an internship to intern somewhere else? My local laws would allow this.

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  • It's an internship. The world won't end, and employers won't care.
    – PeteCon
    Commented Jan 23, 2019 at 20:17
  • What about school policy? Are there requirements on the length or timing of the internship?
    – dwizum
    Commented Jan 23, 2019 at 20:24
  • @dwizum It does not matter, college here in Italy gives you complete freedom but you still need to pass exams in order to graduate. Attending classes is not mandatory.
    – Cesare
    Commented Jan 23, 2019 at 20:29
  • Might want to edit that into your question, for clarification. In some programs in the US at least, the school requires an internship of a certain length and sometimes even during a certain timeframe relative to the rest of your school work. You'd be allowed to seek work outside of those requirements of course, but that work wouldn't count towards degree requirements.
    – dwizum
    Commented Jan 24, 2019 at 13:53

2 Answers 2

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Take the offer you have in hand.

Is it an okay thing to just leave an internship to intern somewhere else?

If you take another offer, well... it is an internship and probably not the end of the world.
Notice that I did not say that it is okay - you are going back on your word because an internship is a specific period of time.

You'd want to have a good reason - a better reason that "something else came along".
Good reasons might be that you aren't learning anything, you were harassed, you become sick/disabled, parent or sibling needs full time care, etc.

If you do jump out of an internship, be prepared for people to remember it years later when you run into them at other companies, trade shows, Meetup groups, whatever.
(people = other interns, employees you worked with, managers, etc.)

I'd advise you to take the offer you have, do a great job, and finish it.

Richard U is correct when he said, "big names don't mean that much once you've actually been working"

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You should always take the offer in hand.

Believe it or not, big names don't mean that much once you've actually been working, and an internship will only help you get your first job.

Moreover, you do not want to risk something you have for something you might have.

Listen to your parents, they've been around for a while.

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