Over half of students graduating college in 2017 have had internship experience.
College Works Painting gives student interns the opportunity to manage a house painting business from start to finish.
Internships can teach you skills that lay the foundation for your career, according to Ryan Coon, an entrepreneur and former College Works intern.
When Ryan Coon was a freshman at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and studying accounting and finance, it would have made sense for him to intern in an accounting firm or at a big bank.
Instead, Coon took an internship with College Works Painting, a company that offers interns the chance to run their own painting businesses in locations across the United States. College Works Painting insures the student-led businesses and provides them with management training and paint materials.
The student intern is responsible for the logistics, hiring and managing each paint job as well as their finances. The prices charged are competitive with other contractors and backed by a quality guarantee; if anything goes wrong, College Works Painting will fix it. The minimum pay for the summer is $4,000 for interns ($2,500 for those in California) who meet the program requirements, but interns can make more than that if they manage their business well.
That sounded enticing back in 2004 to Coon, who knew he wanted to start his own company someday. He spent the summer running a house painting operation in the suburbs of Chicago.