Traditionally, the job of an intern is thought of as someone who gets coffee and runs random errands for everyone in the office.

However, employers and current students working on their internships will tell you differently.

An internship should give students an overall grasp of what is involved in a development position, said Kristen Porter, coordinator of development at the DeKalb Family Service Agency.

Porters’ current interns work from September to April and do work that Porter calls “very effective.”

“I wouldn’t even want to think how difficult NIU’s Bowl for Kid’s Sake would be without them,” Porter said.

The work in an internship should be beneficial, Porter said, and she tries to make her interns’ experiences deviate from her own when she was an intern.

“I didn’t feel I was properly prepared for the real world,” Porter said. “I give interns more responsibility so they feel like they’re more than just getting coffee for someone.”

Delnaz Vazisdar, a senior sociology major and intern for Porter at DeKalb Family Service Agency, agrees, saying she’s kept busy all day.

“I’ve been doing and learning quite a bit over here,” Vazisdar said. “I haven’t just been doing busy work.”

Porter said many times her interns do a lot of copying and stapling, but that’s all part of the real wold experience they get.

Vazisdar has been especially busy lately with NIU’s Bowl for Kid’s Sake, which will raise money for the Big Brother-Big Sister Foundation later this month.

Both Porter and Vazisdar agreed that being an intern is not only important to the employer, but to the student as well.

“It gives a broad base of what the real world is like,” Porter said.