Over the course of the past six weeks, I have spent a fair amount of my free time obsessively searching for internships that sound appealing and will take a student just out of freshman year—not always so easy to find! Needless to say, this has been a major point of stress for both my parents and I. While home for spring break, a few family friends inquired about my plans for this coming summer and I would sheepishly respond that I wasn’t sure. I started to go into panic mode recently when I realized that I was unsure about the status of my applications at a few companies I had applied to. After calming down, I remembered that my former summer job as a camp counselor was being held for me and I breathed a sigh of relief, at least I had a backup plan. So, what do you do if you’re like me and unsure if you’ll have an internship?
- ANY job is a good one!
Apply for retail jobs, secretarial positions, camp counselor jobs, etc. No matter what your career office may tell you, any experience can be worthwhile. My job as a camp counselor taught me organizational and leadership skills that I might have learned elsewhere but instead gained in a creative way. Plus, this is one more reference to add to your resume!
- Volunteer
If volunteering is your speed, it can be a great thing to spend your summer doing. Sometimes volunteer stints can lead to future job and internship opportunities, if an organization knows and likes you they may ask you to apply for a specific internship or look more carefully at your application.
- Research
While it may be a bit late to apply for certain scholarships and funding, think about talking to a professor and seeing if there’s a way you can do individual research with them. After all, F&M spends much of its money on research, and professors are always looking for help!
Those are my best suggestions, if anyone has any more I’d love to hear them!