While some University students travel the globe during their summers and others find time to tan at the beach, some many University students are hard at work as interns. The students said they hope their summer internships will provide them with real-world work experience, help them explore what they want to do with their lives and add to their resumes along the way.
Students were interns for Congressmen, law firms, business corporations and even for baseball teams. No matter what the job, internships plucked University students from college life and dropped them into a world of daily responsibilities.
Fourth-year College student Lauren Pappa, who spent the spring 2006 semester as an NBC Dateline intern and is currently a summer intern at HarperCollins Publishing Company, said both of her internships have served as vital forms of education.
"Obviously the education you get in the classroom is very specific and esoteric at the same time," Pappa said. "Internships are better preparation for what you're going to be doing after college."
Pappa said both her stints with Dateline and HarperCollins have given her a greater sense of where she wants to be after graduation.
"It's more practical and you're getting a better sense of where you're going to be," Pappa said.
Third-year student Chetin Durak, who interned for Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) on Capitol Hill, also said his internship has inspired his post-graduate ambitions.
"I gained incredible experience and personally got the opportunity to network," Durak said, adding that his internship experience has taught him things that are impossible to absorb in the classroom.
"The fundamentals you gain in school will help you with whatever you do," he said. "How you apply fundamentals is what you learn in internships."
Searching and Applying
Third-year College student Allison Crowe's quest to find an internship took months of preparation in itself.
Crowe, who used University Career Services, said she began looking for summer internships back in December, when fall semester's final exams had just wrapped up.
"I found an interesting position on HoosTrak in February," Crowe said. "I saw it, and I dropped everything."
So Crowe applied for her dream position: An internship with the minor league baseball team, the Potomac Nationals.
She was awarded the position in February, after a phone interview. Crowe said her internship duties even overlapped with her spring semester responsibilities, as she had to spend a weekend in April at "the office," or G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium, getting field experience.
Like Crowe, other University students found that it was important to be searching for summer internships early in the school year.
Pappa said she also used University Career Services, but she had to do searching of her own to find what she really wanted -- New York internships.
"I did go to UCS but I found that a lot of their internships were DC-based and I wanted to be in New York," Pappa said. "I knew that I wanted to do something media-related [in the spring] and as for Dateline, I looked online to all the major network websites to see if they had internship programs, sent out a bunch of resumes and waited to hear back."
Pappa said she found her current New York internship with Harper Collins on a specialized website, bookjobs.com.
Just like in the "real" post-graduate career-world, it takes connections to find and apply for internships. Durak, for example, said he knew for some time that he wanted to intern with Congressman Trent Franks.
"My father knew Congressmen Franks, and I learned more about him and his issues," Durak said. "I contacted him and the Congressman gave me the blessing."
Despite his personal connections, Durak said he still had to survive a formal interview, submit a resume and writing sample.
"I appreciated the formality of the process," Durak said.
The Grind
Applying is only one small step in the internship process, according to University students-turned-interns. Third-year Engineering students Lindsey McGuire and Javed Mondal said that the responsibilities that go along with their internships can be overwhelming.
Mondal, who is a summer intern for Booz Allen Hamilton, a national consulting firm, said he didn't even have a weekend between his last exam and his first day of work.
"My last exam was May 13th and my first day of work was the 14th," Mondal said.
Yet the allure of many internships was how golden they would look on a student's resume.
Mondal said most of his Engineering peers looked for internships with contractors and big corporations. Booz Allen, on the other hand, is a "smaller group," Mondal added.
He applied for and was offered multiple internships, including one with Nextel. Even though Nextel would have paid more, he chose to work for Booz Allen because it was the most "marketable."
Mondal, a Mechanical Engineering major, said his Systems Engineering minor has definitely helped him with his internship.
McGuire said she is spending her second summer as an intern for Computer Sciences Corporation.
The hardest part of the job, according to McGuire, is the schedule interns are forced to keep.
"Some days are really early," McGuire said. "For example, this Wednesday I have to wake up at 5:30 AM for training."
Pappa also said waking up early on a regular basis was an adjustment at first, but that it has been a valuable experience.
Both of her internships have been fulltime, "which has been great because as a college student you're not used to working a full work week," Pappa said.
Durak also worked full, nine-to-six days on Capitol Hill. He said he would leave his house at 6:30 AM and return home at 7:30 PM every day for his non-paid internship with Franks.
Still, "it was the best internship I've ever had," Durak said. "It's been the greatest experience and I couldn't have learned more interning anywhere else."
Working Hard for the Money ... Or Not
Mondal, McGuire, Pappa and Crowe all have paid summer internships, but they all said money was certainly not the driving force behind their seeking out the internship.
Crowe said one major lesson she's learned about minor league baseball that people who work in the field must do it for the love of the game.
"It is interesting because working for a minor league organization has altered the way I think about baseball, because now that I work in it, I've learned to appreciate what goes on behind the scenes and how hard people work," Crowe said. "The only people who could realistically do this job are people who love baseball because the hours are so long and the pay is so bad."
Crowe works primarily in ticket sales, but also has non-game day duties.
On game days, Crowe said she works more closely with people doing promotions.
"I get to shoot t-shirts into the crowds, I get to work with the Field of Dreams team, a little league team that get to run out on the field with the team during the National Anthem," Crowe said. "I also find contestants for on- field games."
Then, when the day is over, Crowe will spend hours counting money.
Durak also said he got a great deal of hands-on experience.
"I was lucky enough to take on the project of Taskforce on International Religious Freedom, under the Human Rights Caucus," Durak said.
Durak said he worked with a lot with human rights, International Religious Freedom issues, judiciary issues and telecommunications issues.
"The Taskforce launched right as I entered office, so I took over that project," Durak said.
He added that he also established a process for finding co-sponsors for projects Congressman Franks was working on.
Pappa, who was involved with Dateline documentaries, said she has had plenty of hands-on experience in both her internships. At the end of the summer, she said she and the eleven other interns at HarperCollins will pitch an original book idea to the Chief Executive Officer.
Meanwhile, Pappa said, she rotates through all five major departments of the publishing company.
"It's great to be on the inside of both [Dateline and HarperCollins] worlds," she said.
Tidbits and Perks
Every internship comes with a unique set of perks and benefits. Both Mondal and McGuire, for example, mentioned that they have their own cubicles.
Crowe said her minor league internship has also given her major benefits.
"We are Washington Nationals affiliates, so lots of big leaguers get to do rehab stints with Potomac," Crowe said. "Two Washington Nationals [baseball players] played at our stadium and we get to see them up close."
Pappa said one of the greatest things about her internship at HarperCollins is all the fresh books lying around.
"If you want a copy of something you can ask someone to borrow it," Pappa said. "There are a lot of advanced copies of books and galleys, unedited copies of books."
Working so closely with other people all day in a professional atmosphere also has moments of comic relief.
Mondal said he and his colleagues constantly compare the day-ins and outs of Booz Allen to the comedy "Office Space."
McGuire also quoted "Office Space" when she said she's learned that office supplies become extremely coveted in the real world.
"Instead of the coveted stapler in 'Office Space,' the people I work with have a really hard time letting go of our three-hole punch," McGuire said.
A Reality Check
Crowe, Durak, McGuire, Mondal and Pappa all said their internships were giving them a taste of the real world.
"My internship is giving me a flavor of what engineers do outside of college," Mondal said, who added that his Systems Engineering classes have really benefited him on the job.
McGuire said her internship has really added to what she's learned in her Engineering classes.
"The classroom and my internship supplement each other," McGuire said. "It's ideal to have both experiences."
Crowe, whose internship is unrelated to her English and Economics majors, said her internship has given her more real-world applicable knowledge than any University course has.
"Working is the only way to get perspective of what you want to do, especially because I am in the College," Crowe said. "What's great about working is that you really realize how important internships are in terms of learning what it's like to be in the working world."
As an intern for almost eight months now, Pappa said her professional experience has given her new perspective, both of the college and post-college world.
"The thing that gets to me about school is you get caught up in the 'college bubble,' but when you are out in the real world working, you step out of that bubble and working, you see all that worrying isn't worth it," Pappa said. "Internships are good for a reality check."
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