The transition from a professional program to a graduate assistant is slowly fading out of practice due to the transition from bachelors to masters educational pathway. There are still many pathway options similar to the GA experience (i.e. internships and residencies). Since I am a GA at a program who has elected to keep GA positions for basically as long as they can be filled, I will focus my conversation on Graduate Assistantships instead of internships or residencies.
So in my experience, the most common pathways athletic training students took (likely due to the transition being in progress), was to graduate with your bachelors in athletic training, become certified and then become a graduate assistant and pursue a masters degree. While some of my classmates went straight to full time jobs, a large majority opted for graduate assistant experiences and additional education. Personally I chose this route so that I could obtain a masters degree for minimal cost, while improving my confidence in working semi-autonomously as a certified athletic trainer. I think one of the biggest draws to post-professional education and internships/residencies/assistantships is that they foster environments ideal for building up confidence, skill competency and experience. This seems to be a draw for many, with young professionals attributing their successful transition to practice to role immersion clinical education experiences, mentorship, and supervision, which helped them to build confidence in their professional skills. (2)
Mentorship is a huge contributing factor to successful transition, self-confidence and readiness to practice clinically. (2) Because of this, mentorship is an extremely valuable resource for newly credentialed health care and medical providers, and those who feel they lacked mentorship and immersive experience in their educational development, may be able to receive this experience and develop their self-confidence through assistantships. Assistantships provide students with more diverse didactic and clinical education experiences and develop time management, which are skills and experiences necessary for a successful and easier transition. (1)
While GA's aren't technically considered full time and are certainly not paid like it, most GAs end up working 40+ hour weeks on top of school requirements, as well as potentially taking on additional roles as preceptors and teaching assistants (1). The transition to the first full-time job may come as a relief to some of those individuals because their role responsibilities don't change much, where as their pay nearly doubles and they don't have academic deadlines to focus on in addition to their work requirements. Similarly students, like myself, may find the transition to GA easier than being a student, because you are working the same hours, or potentially less, with pay. I was able to quit my two part time jobs from undergrad and spend those 40 hours a week working on schoolwork, research, job tasks and self-care. You still only get paid a stipend so you'll have to save up enough money to live since secondary jobs are not likely possible.
On the flip side, as you lose responsibilities from external sources, like school or other jobs, you gain responsibilities as you slowly move to working "on your own." As you transition into a full time job you lose that immediate network of certified ATs and professors who are willing and able to cover events for you, assist with tough cases and provide an additional support network. You are also now likely working increased hours as you will be considered full time instead of "part-time" like you would be with a GA position (though some GA positions treat you as a full time AT regardless).
Overall, the best advice I can give is for you to consider what you perceive to be your flaws or weaknesses, or what you consider to be your biggest concern in transitioning to practice, and determine if an assistantship, internship or advanced education will be able to help you overcome those barriers.
(1) Mazerolle SM, Walker SE, Thrasher AB. Exploring the transition to practice for the newly credentialed athletic trainer: a programmatic view. Journal of athletic training. 2015;50(10):1042-1053.
(2) Bowman TG, Mazerolle SM, Barrett JL. Professional master's athletic training programs use clinical education to facilitate transition to practice. Athletic Training Education Journal. 2017;12(2):146-151.
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