Should I Continue My Engineering Internship Even Without Hands-On Experience?

[23415123451]

I work in the department of engineering services in a company. To be more specific, I am doing a job which entails sorting and organizing engineering documents and cataloging them. I spoke with my director and was told that I would likely not get to do much, if any, actual engineering work. I was told that I would get to do quite a bit of it, but since the program has apparently changed, I am regretting it. But that's a different issue, and my questions are:

Since I would not get to establish much actual engineering experience, is it worth it for me to continue with it? I still have time to go back to take a summer class and continue working in my lab.
If I quit, would I still be able to do an internship after my college education is over?
If I decide to continue with this internship, could this be a productive part of my resume at all even if no real engineering experience was obtained?

I appreciate your inputs on this matter. Thank you very much in advance.

 

[fysika]

So basically all your internship entails is paper work? If that's the case, and you have additional opportunities that involve real engineering or research available, I'd say try to make the switch - the thing potential employers or grad schools will value is research.

Quitting an internship isn't the end. If anything, you'll be able to explain to whomever the reason you quit and took on another: for real experience.

If you decide to stick with your current program, it potentially could help. Though I'd suspect, if no real work was done, that it won't be valued as much as someone with "real" experience.

 

[23415123451]

So basically all your internship entails is paper work? If that's the case, and you have additional opportunities that involve real engineering or research available, I'd say try to make the switch - the thing potential employers or grad schools will value is research.

Quitting an internship isn't the end. If anything, you'll be able to explain to whomever the reason you quit and took on another: for real experience.

If you decide to stick with your current program, it potentially could help. Though I'd suspect, if no real work was done, that it won't be valued as much as someone with "real" experience.

Hey, thanks for the input.

I've thought about this long and hard last night, and I decided to continue with it for these reasons:
- I can do a more legit research/internship next summer too
- If I work hard on this one (and I will), I can gain a valuable reference for my next internship
- This type of work could potentially be a break from all of the academics and more thinking-intensive stuff that I've had to do until now, and I could take this time to prepare for my classes and research to come back and do well
- If anything, this could just be a good first look at how the "real world" works

I will keep asking around to see if I can find more real engineering opportunities at this job, but also keep in mind that it won't be the end of the world if I can't.

Of course, feel free to tell me if you don't agree with my reasons.