New semester, new internship opportunities

Many of you will begin the search for internships and work experience this semester. You don’t have to be a junior to start this process; freshmen and sophomores get internships too! Here’s freshman Dan Kent’s story about his internship search last semester. We hope it inspires you to seek an internship of your own!

Being a freshman entering college (especially this College) can be a very intimidating experience. There are so many new opportunities that present themselves to you and it’s impossible to do everything you might want to do. Upon my arrival at the College, one of the many programs I heard about was the Local Internship Program (LIP) at the Cohen Career Center.

As someone interested in a business career, the program immediately appealed to me. Internships give a boost to your resume, teach you various skills, and help you hone in on your career choice. In order to provide the Local Internship Program, the Career Center has formed relationships with various businesses around Williamsburg that offer internships to W&M students. Of course, you are required to apply for all the different internships you want. The companies that are then interested in hiring you will contact you for an interview.

Personally, I found a wealth of different internships I was interested in pursuing, and applied for around 15. I received a couple of different offers, but eventually selected an internship at New York Life Insurance. More than the other internships I was offered, I felt that NYL would teach me the most relevant skills I needed for future internships.

Internships through the LIP only last for the semester (although if they hire you back you are free to continue working there) so I stopped working at NYL at the beginning of December. I then contacted one of the companies that had offered me an internship at the start of the Fall and expressed interest in working with them in the spring. With very little trouble, I was offered a position and am now a marketing and sales intern for a company called Taste of Williamsburg, which offers dining tours to locals and tourists.

When I initially came to college, I thought that internships were just for upperclassmen who had already completed a large amount of coursework and who had a wealth of other leadership experiences in their activities. This impression has been thoroughly changed by working with the Career Center. My internships have contributed to my experience, which will only help me hone in on what I hope to major in. With every work experience, you gain valuable skills that increase your appeal to employers. My biggest piece of advice to get internships would be to use the resources at the Career Center. Everyone that works there is incredibly knowledgeable and eager to help you in your internship search. I know if I hadn’t gone to them for help with my resume, I would not have gotten half of the internship offers I did! Now I can look at summer internship opportunities and be confident that my hard work and persistence will pay off.

If you need help starting your internship search, make an appointment with a career advisor today. If you’d like to apply for Spring 2012 Local Internships, plan to attend a LIP orientation session in the next few weeks.