I don't know where I developed this stereotypical notion, but to me the word "internship" meant photocopying documents, taking lunch orders, and making hazelnut coffee for my boss.

When I was offered an opportunity through my high school to spend five days interning at an economic think-tank, I thought I was going to learn how to Xerox a textbook properly.

The six interns from my school were each paired with a full-time research staff, and we all worked on individual projects.

With the exception of being smothered in donuts and orange juice, we were given the full office treatment: a grey office cubicle, a desktop loaded with Windows XP, and a legal pad to write on.

I spent the next five days with my mentor Ted, studying the employment status of young workers in the United States. Ted was friendly but demanding.

He explained that by the fifth day, we would produce a five page report with charts and diagrams explaining the youth unemployment situation since the great recession. I silently mouthed a "WTF" as he outlined his ambitious plan.

Every morning started with a brief meeting with Ted. I was assigned to read 20-page-long economic reports (I hadn't even bothered using my school's JSTOR subscription before) or compile data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Every hour or so, Ted would call me into his office. I'd quickly scramble my legal pad and laptop, knowing that Ted would ask me what stood out from the report or spreadsheets. Even though I was the naïve intern with a big ego, Ted never stopped me from expressing my ideas.

I later learned that I was lucky to have a demanding mentor who cared about my internship experience. "My first internship was horrible," Kelly recalled, who spent five weeks at a wealth management firm with the help of her dad's connections.

While Kelly was invited to participate in partner meetings and observe prospective clients, she spent the majority of her time doing repetitive work. "I still remember coming to office one day, and my boss came in and placed a big box on my desk. The box was filled with a thousand white envelopes and stickers, and I spent the whole day putting stickers on envelopes. I was literally bleeding."

Chelsea landed an internship last summer at her dad's catering company. She spent a majority of her time filling in rental forms, plugging menu items in the computer system, and even helping her mentor, a sales associate, create a Pinterest page.

Chelsea ended up spending a lot of time doing "busy work," and was only invited into one client meeting, where she helped planned a 60th wedding anniversary. "The only silver lining was that the food was good there, so I looked forward to lunch every day," Chelsea said. "I learned a lot more working at Shake Shack than at my internship."

While much of today's discussion on internships focuses on paid verses unpaid, the real issue we should be debating is how we can create good internships. We should get rid of the notion that giving interns "real-world" experience means solely answering phone calls, sorting through files, or taking lunch orders.

While interns should expect a certain amount of boring and menial tasks, mentors must spend enough time with their interns to build a relationship of trust. Mentors should also assign tasks that challenge the intern, motivating him or her to work harder and value the internship experience more.

Companies that dedicate the time to mentoring and provide training for the intern can also benefit from internships.

Employers can learn about a potential employee's work ethic, attention to detail, and other qualities through an internship. They don't have the benefit of this knowledge about a candidate who has no prior work experience in the company.

Employees hired through an internship are also more loyal to the company, according to a study conducted by the NACE in 2009.

Many of the students I interviewed went to their parents or relatives for help on seeking internship opportunities, rather than approaching their guidance counselors or faculty advisors.

Schools not only need to work with businesses in creating good internship experiences, but should also play a role in encouraging students to partake in such opportunities. By making internships more accessible, more students will have a chance to gain job experience, and businesses can attract the highest quality of students.

Whether you agree or disagree with President Obama's plan to offer free community college or his commitment to increase job training, it is evident that we have now shifted into a knowledge-based economy where jobs will require higher educational qualifications and workers with more specialized skills are needed.

More than ever, young people need opportunities to build experience and incorporate skills learned in school into the work environment. Apprenticeships, though underutilized, can also provide students with invaluable experiences.

As high school and college students straddle the line of adolescence and adulthood, they must plan strategically and build a solid pathway to career success.