Despite the growing recognition of internships as valuable learning experiences, little research has been done on how they affect students' professional growth and job prospects in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. For this reason, this paper studies the impact of internships as an exteracurrecurial activity on the skills development and employability of university students in the KRI context. The study follows a mixed-method research design, combining a questionnaire distributed to 50 Soran University alumni who graduated between 2020 and 2024 and semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 of them. The participants are interns who have participated in the Internships program during their studies and they were slected through purposive sampling. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings suggest that internships played a significant role in developing both soft and hard skills among the participants, particularly in areas such as communication, teamwork, and professional confidence. Most participants also reported feeling more career-ready and better positioned in the job market after completing their internship. The study concludes that internships are a key factor in bridging the gap between academic study and professional life, and recommends that universities in the KRI take stronger steps to make internship opportunities more structured and accessible to all students. Keywords: internships, extracurricular activities, skills development, employability, Soran University, Kurdistan Region of Iraq
