Nothing prepares you for your professional life and helps you make good career decisions like an internship. Not only will you be able to put your classroom learning into practice, but you will be able experience the working environment that will make up a substantial part of your life to come. To earn an IST bachelor's degree requires you to take at least one internship and you may have as many as three.
Coops are also available and encouraged.
You face that widening manpower gap every day. And, HR execs know that simply hiring hard-core technical staffers is not going to solve all of the problems. You need the emerging professionals who have a base of technological learning, plus a skill set that includes leadership, teamwork, communications, and the ability to apply technology to make things happen.