Gen Z internship race: Fear of missing out or path to success?

There is a growing trend of university students juggling multiple internships, even taking time off school to get valuable experience and a foot in the door of industries.
Undergraduates Syauqina Amalyn and Toh Yan Yun explain their hustle mentality.
Here’s an excerpt from the conversation: 
Tiffany Ang:
You have one more year left to study. Do you think that you want to try more internships next year? 
Syauqina Amalyn:
For now, I’m actually very open to doing more internships because I intentionally scheduled my classes to just take up less than half of my week so that I can still spend some time to look for another internship role to fill up my time before I graduate. It will probably be my last internship stint to get a sensing of what I would want to do before I graduate. 
Tiffany:
Help me to understand … what is this craze about trying to do as many internships as possible?
Maybe I belong to that school of thought where, “It’s the school holidays, just enjoy yourself,” or “Let’s just finish up all your credit so that you finish school and then just get straight to work.”  
Toh Yan Yun:
I feel like the craze is because there’s a shift in mindset that students don’t really prioritise school that much anymore now that we’re in (university). We hear GPA is not really that important; you can just get (a) 3.5 GPA. The more important thing is that you have work experiences to bolster your portfolio. 
For me, I know that I want to be in journalism. So what is going to set me apart from people who want to be in journalism is how many internships I’ve got lined up behind me and how relevant my skills will be so that I can assimilate very quickly into journalism when I eventually want to apply for a full-time job. 
Tiffany:
So why not just quickly get it over and done with, and then after that, start your career from there?
Yan Yun:
It’s just the anxious feeling that what you have is not enough. Okay. I think it’s because (of) LinkedIn. You see people on there with like what Gerald said, six to seven internships, and then you’re there with one or two internships. 
It’s definitely going to be someone with four to five internships, who have skills that immediately fit what the employers are already looking for. And now I think if you scroll job openings, they don’t just say, “Anybody who has an interest is welcome.”
They’ll say, “Oh, you must have experience with maybe Photoshop, maybe you’ve learned how to write, or you’ve had this experience with writing, or this experience with interviews, and then you can maybe pass through, even to just get an interview.” 
Tiffany:
Okay, it’s almost like an arms race, right?  
Gerald Tan:
Yeah, it’s like an arms race. I can feel what YY was saying about the anxiousness. It’s not just enough to get decent grades – we’re not looking at top tier grades, but just decent grades. But you really want to have enough experience. This what employers are already expecting from you right out of school. They’re not giving you time to learn. 
I do think that internships are really useful. It’s just that, for me, listening to this is a little bit worrying. If it’s motivated by a sense of fear or anxiousness that I’m not good enough, I don’t have enough …
But yet, what we are seeing with young people in universities, I do think that there’s a lot of fear that they are not good enough …
It’s good to have the drive to want to do well for your future – there’s nothing wrong with that. But … we need to learn where that boundary is.
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