Everyone’s talking about internships for students — engineers, artists, even philosophy majors. Great move, truly. But here’s the twist: the people teaching them have rarely stepped foot outside the academic bubble. No industry stints, no shop floor sweat, no field chaos — just papers, exams occasional PDFs and PowerPoints for seminars, and articles for peer-reviewed journals.
Faculty recruitment today celebrates pure academic brilliance — test scores, research papers, and theoretical depth. But real-world exposure? Maybe one or two short visits, and that too with a lunch break in between. We’re asking students to “connect theory with practice” while their mentors haven’t had the practice part ever. So how will they guide projects, shape ideas, or even understand current industry trends? You can’t teach “application” if you’ve never applied it yourself.
If internships are good for students, they’re essential for faculty. Or else we’re raising a generation that’s learning the real world from people who’ve only studied it from the sidelines.
