Internships can be productive experiences that help you decide where your career path leads. But, the process of finding an internship can be rather murky and stressful. I’d like to help alleviate some of that stress and murk with a practical approach to finding an internship. I call it the Inside Out Internship Search.

But first… internship search stress is amplified by what I like to call the Google Effect: students have a burst of inspiration related to their career search and realize they need an internship, but they don’t know exactly how to find one. They go to Google and type in something like “law internships Boston” or “business internships” and get A. millions of results or B. very few results that are helpful. Sound familiar?

The Google Effect is a product of Outside In internship searching, which brings many students to the Career Center for the first time frantically proclaiming there are no internships out there for them. Outside In searches involve starting big and broad (and you can’t get much bigger or broader than Google), rather than as specific as possible. It involves scouring internet internship and job databases for hours until you can’t see straight.

Ever heard the phrase, “Work smarter, not harder?” This concept definitely applies to your internship search. A directed, Inside Out internship search begins with you. To begin, answer these questions:

Where do I/ can I plan to live over the summer? The stress of the internship search is exacerbated by the many results a general internship query can turn up. Before you start searching, figure out where you’d like to live, or at least the top three places you’d consider. That will help you narrow any database search results, and also help us connect you to alumni and employers in those areas. Note: a lot of people say they’d go anywhere for an internship. I don’t believe this is true. Everyone has at least a few specific preferences for location. Start there.

What do I want to do with my time this summer?  When you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s really hard to find anything!  You do not need to know exactly what your internship will entail or how it is going to directly lead to a career, but you do need to identify an objective for the experience. Do you want exposure to a career field or industry? Do you need to develop new skill sets (i.e. working with children, using statistical applications, speaking a foreign language)? Asking yourself what you want from an internship can go a long way, and helps your career adviser direct you to specific resources. We all have ideas and preferences, and in the Inside Out internship search, saying “I just need to do something” isn’t going to cut it.

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can begin to search for internship opportunities. Again, it’s important to start with you:

If you know where you’d like to be for the summer, inventory the contacts you have in that city or region and get in touch with them. Planning to go home over the summer? Send a note to local friends, bosses, mentors and family members letting them know your intentions. Tell them what kinds of experiences and skills you’d like to gain through an internship and politely ask for referrals. You may not know anyone who works in the industry you seek, but those contacts might! Each of your contacts is a potential line to an organization or service provider, and a potential reference to introduce you. Not going home? Consider whether you have any connections to areas you’re considering and send a quick email or – even better – call those contacts. You can also use LinkedIn to tap into the William and Mary Alumni Network and contact alumni who live in those areas for referrals to internship sites. And don’t forget about your faculty! If you’re considering internships that relate to your major or favorite course, your faculty may have suggestions for summer research or internship sites.

Once you’ve exhausted your contacts, use what you’d like to do to search for specific organizations and businesses in your geographic areas of choice. Many, many internships are never posted officially. Not every company, non-profit or government agency (in fact, statistically, very few) has time or staff to post their opportunities on college career websites or attend on campus career events, but they may have postings on their own websites. Use city and county directories or local professional organizations to locate places of interest, then check out their websites or contact them directly to inquire about summer opportunities for students. As you develop a list of possibilities, go back to LinkedIn to see if W&M alums work at any of the places you find and reach out to them for additional information.

If you try these suggestions and come up empty handed, then move on to guided internet research. You can use TribeCareers, our Career Center database for job and internship searching, to seek opportunities by keyword and zip code. You can also access the University Career Action Network (UCAN), an all-internship database accessible through TribeCareers with more than 1,500 internship listings and lots of advanced search options.

If neither site, nor the suggestions offered here yield results, come to see us. We can help. And for goodness’ sake, stay away from Google! Good luck and happy hunting!

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.

Guest blogger Holly Meyer, Assistant Director of the Cohen Career Center, offers insights on two great ways to make use of your winter break.

Finals are finally done and you must be ready for a break. The staff at the Career Center hopes that winter break will provide the rest and relaxation you need! We also hope, however, that you will use some of your upcoming break to work toward your internship or job search goals. A component of your internship or job search goals is likely exploration. You might be feeling unsure about what you’d like to do. If so, we’d like to encourage you to try informational interviewing or job shadowing, two very useful exploration activities.

Informational interviews are one of the most valuable sources of information about occupations and industries. When completing an informational interview, YOU are in control! You will first identify and reach out to alumni or personal connections who are working in fields that interest you. We recommend using LinkedIn to identify possible informational interviewees. Once you have created a LinkedIn profile page highlighting your work, volunteer, and campus experiences, you can connect to alumni by joining the College of William and Mary Alumni Network under the Groups tab. You’ll be able to browse through more than 7,700 alumni profiles to identify people whose career paths interest you and reach out to them to request an interview. (Note: If you’re a LinkedIn novice and nervous about making these connections, you can also ask friends and family if they can connect you to professionals over the break.)

After identifying and connecting with contacts, set up a time to speak with your informational interviewee for about 30 minutes. Informational interviews can take place in person or over the phone, but we recommend trying to meet face to face with your interviewee if possible. You can ask questions regarding their day-to-day responsibilities, challenges of the job, company culture, or how your coursework might help you prepare for the occupation. For more resources on informational interviews, including a script to get you started and a list of in-depth questions, visit the Career Center website.

It can be hard to truly gauge if an occupation is right for you until you talk to someone who is living it every day. Informational interviewing allows you to meet and build relationships with professionals. You’ll build confidence as you gain knowledge about the career options available to you. Treat this experience like a real interview; you’ll need to dress professionally and be prepared!

You may also engage in job shadowing over winter break. Job shadowing involves spending anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks in a workplace, observing the day-to-day responsibilities of a particular occupation. It’s a change to see what it’s really like to work in an industry or company you might be considering. Often, students who job shadow are able to observe meetings, interact with customers or patients, and understand the pace of a position. You’ll have the opportunities to ask questions and determine how you feel about a job or work setting. You can also learn about the culture of the workplace. How do co-workers interact with each other? Would you spend a large part of your day in meetings? Is the environment what you expected?

Similar to informational interviews, participating in job shadowing allows you to build relationships with professionals in an industry or career field. We encourage you to use LinkedIn and personal contacts when seeking job shadowing opportunities as well. Before participating in job shadowing, you’ll want to confirm the dress code before arriving. It’s also helpful to prepare a list of questions you have in order to engage in conversation with professionals you’ll meet throughout the day.

With both informational interviewing and job shadowing, it is important to follow up with your contact(s) and send a thank-you note and request to connect on LinkedIn. Highlight what you learned from the experience and convey your appreciation for the time and information shared. Throughout the process, remain professional and courteous, even if you ultimately decide not to pursue the paths you explored; you never know who your interview or shadowing contact may be able to connect  you to in the future!

To discuss either of these activities in detail, contact the Career Center to schedule a phone appointment over break. Our office is open until December 23, and reopens on January 3, 2012. Have a safe, restful, and productive break!

Post by Tiffanie Rosier, Assistant Director and Internship Coordinator, Cohen Career Center

Experience is an important word in the Career Center vocabulary. According to Webster’s Dictionary, experience can be defined as: a: direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge b: the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation or a: practical knowledge, skill, or practice derived from direct observation of or participation in events or in a particular activity b: the length of such participation (ie. has 10 years’ experience in the job). So what experience will you gain during your Winter Break? There are several options that you can consider in order to gain that career related experience:

1. Seek out an internship that may or may not currently exist at a company or organization of interest to you. Remember, to visit the Cohen Career Center before you leave for break in order to have a staff member review your resume and cover letter.
2. You can ask to volunteer at a company by participating in the Cohen Career Center Winter Break Shadowing Program. You can see which alumni are willing to host current W&M students to shadow and observe them and their organization for all or part of the Winter Break.

So, where do you begin to search for these experiences? The options are endless, but the Career Center wants to highlight just a few to get you started.

1. Tribe Careers is your official gateway to jobs and internships for W&M students and alumni. There are currently over 442 jobs and internships listed. Also, when you log in you will be able to access the database links to more than 100 resources.
2. UCAN (University Career Action Network) is a consortium of 22 colleges and universities from across the country, developed to provide resources and tools to help students identify a variety of career and internship opportunities. Member institutions are strategically chosen for their strong academic reputations and their widespread geographic locations in order to provide a broad range of internship opportunities for students. Founded in 1996, UCAN is a shared database of internship listings (both international and domestic), making it one of the most comprehensive internship resources listed on the internet.
3. Are you LinkedIn? If not, visit www.linkedin.com to set up your free account to get connected. The Learning Center on LinkedIn has many helpful videos and cheat sheets for LinkedIn users. The Career Center maintains a subgroup on LinkedIn called Tribe Connections, an online hub for alumni who want to mentor current students in the career development process. In counseling appointments, we encourage those students who wish to connect to an alumni mentor to join Tribe Connections and search for users who have work histories or experiences that relate to their interests. In turn, alumni users are able to distinguish their use of Tribe Connections by indicating to students in the “Interests” section of their profiles how they would like to interact. Resume review, informational interviews, job shadowing, and mock interviewing are the most common interactions.

This information is only the tip of the iceberg; there are many ways to gain valuable experience on your career development path. If you still aren’t sure how to find the experience you are looking for or unsure of what experience could be right for you, then come on into the Cohen Career Center and make an appointment to meet with one of our staff members. Good luck with the last week of classes!

Are your ears burning, seniors? They should be because everyone is talking about you. It’s hard to flip through a newspaper today without seeing stories that concern you; how tuition is rising faster than the rate of inflation, how college graduates are working minimum wage jobs rather than changing the world, how you are oriented toward achievement and recognition rather than practicality and hard work. You would have to live under a rock to not hear these kinds of things. Just today, I read an opinion piece discussing whether the Baby Boomer generation has done current students and recent grads a disservice by raising them to go after the best grades, the best colleges, and the “right” majors, rather than investing in activities they love, engaging in more part time work experiences, or in general, coming face to face with failure.

Whose fault is it that the job landscape has changed for college graduates? Whose fault is it that the Millennial generation is struggling? It doesn’t matter. A lot of factors have brought us to the current state of affairs and there’s no sign that things are going to become more stable or predictable for college students and graduates anytime soon. But, that doesn’t mean all is hopeless, as long as we remain in touch with reality. For example:

College graduates do get jobs. While the national unemployment rate hovers between 9 and 10 percent, the unemployment rate for those who hold a 4-year college degree remains closer to 4 percent. That means 96 percent of college degree holding members of society are employed. These are good odds.

Some of your friends already have jobs; most of them don’t. The students who score job offers in the fall of your senior year will always be the loudest on campus. So much so that you feel if you are not employed by Thanksgiving, you are somehow eons behind where you should be. Not true. The majority of industries are not recruiting students who still have a semester or more of school to complete. For most companies, jobs become available when they are available, not in line with when you’re going to graduate. For this reason, it’s much more common for college graduates to land their first position 3 to 6 months after graduation.

Your first job is just that; a first step toward a career, not your whole career. There is a pretty good chance that the job you land right out of college won’t be ideal. Let that settle in, and know that it is okay. What you’re doing in your first job is gaining experience, building skills in a full-time or part-time environment, and beginning to develop a network of professional colleagues. So, while you may not be in love with your first job, remember its practical value; skills development, experience in a professional environment, and networking contacts.

Lastly, as the semester winds down and you’re preparing for your last few months on campus, remember that persistence, determination and resilience are rewarded in the job search process. Prove all those people out there talking about your generation wrong. Your William and Mary education is just the beginning; it’s a phenomenal foundation for future success. But you’ve gotta use it and you have to work hard. A college degree alone entitles you to nothing. Consistently focusing your time and talents on getting a job will result in interviews, opportunities, and jobs.  Be bold and assertive. Use what you’ve learned here to go after what you really want. No one can do that for you, but trust me, you’ve already got the tools you need to do it yourself.
If you want some help in the process, please contact us at the Career Center. We have lots of resources to empower you in your career search.

I spend lots of time trying to coax freshmen and sophomores to check out our major events, like the Fall Career and Internship Fair, often in vain. “The Career Fair’s just for seniors!” “Suits are scary!” I’ve heard it all. But if I can’t convince you that it’s important for you to check out the Career Fair in your first years here, let Annie Martinez ’14. She’s got quite a story to tell. 

For this William and Mary sophomore, the idea of a career fair was scary. I was positively petrified to step into that room filled with employers who I was certain would ask me a question I could not even attempt to answer. Just the sight of their Banana Republic suits and Brooks Brothers briefcases gave me the chills. Yet last Friday, I found myself stuck in the midst of the largest group of employers I have ever seen.

As a student assistant at the Career Center, I help staff various events throughout the year. For the fall career and internship fair, I was in charge of welcoming everyone who came in and directing them to check in. When my bosses suggested I take a break and walk around the fair, I insisted that I was fine and content to stay at my post. Yet they were insistent, and when the boss says go… you go!

Shaking and nervous, I grabbed my bag and hesitantly walked into the fair. I hadn’t planned to stop at the Colgate table, yet as fate would have it, I was soon handing over a copy of my resume and talking to a Colgate employee who was also a recent William and Mary alum. She told me all about her experience with Colgate and how much she loved it, highlighting the internship experience she had as a junior. She asked me a bit about myself and after a few minutes, pulled her boss over to meet me. When the boss came over, he greeted me with a warm smile and a firm handshake that was comforting and reassuring. The nerves I walked in with began to quickly fade away. After looking over my resume and asking some additional questions, he began to tell me about their summer 2012 marketing internship designed just for sophomores. That night, they were going to deliberate about the students they’d met at the fair to decide who to invite for interviews. He asked if I would like to be considered. I was shocked and of course said yes. I thanked them and shook their hands, walking back to my bosses star-struck. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t even want to go into the fair and here I walked out with a potential interview!

I received the call that night that I had gotten an interview slot. Monday’s interview came and went and Tuesday afternoon my phone rang with a call from their headquarters in NYC. Guess who got the internship? This girl! I’m currently in the process of accepting the position and still cannot believe how silly I was to think the career fair was something to fear. So next time you see the business suits and the briefcases, don’t be afraid… they’re just waiting to offer you an amazing opportunity.

Don’t miss out on the next amazing opportunity. Save the date! Our Spring 2011 Career and Internship Fair is scheduled for January 27.

Meet Nathan Alston, a W&M junior studying government and theatre. Nathan’s from Chesapeake, Virginia and plans to attend law school after graduation. This summer, Nathan interned at the Muscarelle Museum of Art where he researched and wrote the audio tour and quick response tags for an upcoming exhibition of 50 impressionist paintings from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. He offers his reflections about the experience.

In my two years at William and Mary, I have begun to recognize a trend in many of my experiences. I have discovered that often I am put into circumstances and situations that are completely foreign to me and take some getting used to. This summer was no exception. Over the past two months I have served as an intern at the Muscarelle Museum of Art and many of my experience here have been very different from anything I’ve ever done before.

My involvement with the Muscarelle first began upon a recommendation from a friend. One of my best friends explained to me one evening that she had a great internship this summer at the Muscarelle. She described what she would be doing at the museum and my interest was immediately piqued. After emailing the museum and a brief interview, I was offered the internship.

Student interns (right to left) Kat Miliberger and Nathan Alston, with post-graduate curatorial fellow Kathryn Fay work on a summer art project.

On my first day, I enthusiastically walked into the museum’s front doors and sat down with the intern coordinator Amy to discuss my summer project. She explained that I would be researching an art movement known as Impressionism in order to prepare for an upcoming exhibition. I received a list of important Impressionist paintings and was sent to a computer to begin my research. Initially, I was excited. I have always loved art and found this to be a great opportunity to learn something new. Then, after reading a couple articles about Impressionism, my initial excitement began to fade and panic set in. I began to realize that researching Impressionism would be difficult for me because I know absolutely nothing about art. As a theatre and government major I know a lot about political theory and theatre history, but nothing about art. This realization made me extremely nervous but I decided I would try to do the best research I could. So, after throwing trepidation aside, I hastily made my way to Swem Library and checked out as many Impressionism books as possible to begin my research.

I actually found Impressionism to be absolutely fascinating. I found the art works stunning and the painters- including Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir- inspiring. My love of art grew as I found more information about Impressionism.

Nathan (left) and his fellow Muscarelle interns prepare for an intern appreciation event.

After a couple weeks of work at the Muscarelle I began to grow more and more comfortable. I really got to know my fellow interns and everyone was extremely helpful, which created a really exciting work environment. One of my most memorable experiences with the interns is the day that a financial adviser came to Muscarelle to talk to us exclusively about personal finance. While the information session was incredibly educational, the expressions on the interns’ faces were priceless. We all cringed at words including debt, insurance and budgeting, all of which seemed way too adult for us. After our initial shock (and an awesome meal at the Cheese Shop), we began to truly take in the information presented to us. We also realized how much the museum’s employees really care about their interns.

As the summer comes to a close and I submit the final copy of my Impressionism project, I can say that I truly learned a lot this summer. I learned about art as well as working in a professional environment, both of which were new to me at the beginning of the summer. My internship at the Muscarelle has been an invaluable experience and I have truly loved my time here.

Want to learn more about summer internships at the Muscarelle Museum? Visit their website for information about internships and volunteer opportunities.

Lauren Jones ’14 has completed the second week of her internship at the Virginia Tech Summer Governor’s School for Agriculture, and not surprisingly, she’s learned a lot since she first wrote a guest blog for me.

There’s More to a Job than the Here and Now

I can’t believe it has already been two weeks! I’m halfway done here, and it has been a fantastic time so far. Working with 100 high school students has presented a new round of challenges every day, but I can safely say that my fantastic coworkers have been very supportive of each other and of me.

My daily schedule consists of waking around 7 a.m., eating a quick breakfast, and being in class with the students from 9 a.m. until noon. After lunch, they are in class or working on the program’s big project from 1:30 until 5 p.m. After dinner, I help students work on their project, ensure they are behaving themselves, and teach a belly dance class with one of my friends. After 9 p.m., when all the students are in their dorms for the night, I attend the daily team meeting, followed by rounds in the residence halls. All of the encouraging, teaching, disciplining and learning I do here takes up nearly all my time each day!

The hectic pace of the GSA has brought me to a few realizations about how I fit into the workplace. When the students are behaving and getting their work done, it is a very relaxed, fun environment. However, there are times at which they are all driving me nuts and I would like nothing more than a few minutes of peace! I am not sure if I could deal with the high-stress job of working with young people for most of my day. Still, I am not sure that I would rather spend my time at work with adults either. I suppose I will have to use future employment opportunities to understand which age groups I feel most comfortable working with.

Despite the everyday stress, I get a sense of fulfillment from my work with the students at the end of the day. I enjoy getting to know each of them, understanding who they are and who they might like to become. Although there are days when I am so frustrated I could pull my hair out and days when I am so tired I could fall asleep standing up, I feel as if I am making a difference in these students’ lives. I want them to feel that this summer was one of the most important they’ve had, and I am honored knowing I’ve been a part of it. I feel a great sense of pride knowing that some of these students look up to me and that I am serving as a role model for them. I realize that they are all at a difficult and confusing time in their lives and that I’m not far removed from their experience, but I can try to encourage them to be the best they can be and learn from the opportunities afforded to them.

This program is less focused upon the short-term goals that students must fulfill, but mainly upon helping them make up their minds about the future. I want to see how this experience impacts each of of these students today and tomorrow. I am eager to learn how they will apply the knowledge and experience they gained here in their lives in the years to come!

As the coordinator of freshmen and sophomore initiatives for our office, I meet with underclassmen nearly every day. The number one concern of most freshmen and sophomores I meet is choosing the “right” major. I met with two students this week, both faced with deciding what to study. How to pick a “good” major, how to pick the “right” major, how to pick the “best” major- no matter how you phrase it, the question is the same. You want to study something that will benefit you when you leave college, but what?

There are times where careers or industries do require you to pick the “right” major. If you dream of being a software developer, you’ll need the right computer skills and a Computer Science major can help you get there. Perhaps you dream of being a college history professor- you can bet that majoring in history to prepare for graduate school will be beneficial.

But for the rest of us, majors are a sticky issue because more often then not, they are not linearly aligned with career choices. One of the students I met with this week asked me what my major was in college. “Journalism,” I told him, and waited for the inevitable jaw drop or confused facial expression. I got it. But I told the student, as I’ll tell you, that choosing to be a journalism major gave me a skill set that I use every single day in my job. I know how to take a complex issue and write about it effectively. I developed interpersonal skills through lots of interviews and conversations with the subjects of my stories. I learned how to respond productively to criticism from editors and apply it to better my work. I developed confidence, learned to navigate deadline pressure and manage stressful situations. In sum, my major prepared me well for my career.

I was a journalism major, yes, but I am not a journalist. For me, major did not equal career and that is totally okay because I know the ways in which that major was beneficial for me.  What I challenge you to do as you think about major choices is to re-frame the question you’re asking. Don’t ask what the major can do for you in the job search. Ask yourself what skill sets the majors you are considering will help you to develop and learn to clearly articulate them. Ask yourself every day what you are learning and why it matters. Because in the interview or on the graduate school application, you have to convince others that you’ve got the skills they need. And whether you got those skills from a psychology major or an econ major may matter less than  your ability to articulate what you’ve learned, how it applies to your goals, and what you have to offer.

Parents, alumni and other readers, I invite you to share in the comments your experiences with how you link your major (or not) with the work you do.

The path we take from major to career is unique for everyone.

This past semester, I counseled many freshmen and sophomores who were seeking internships. Several of those students have been in touch with me about how things are going so far and what they are learning. This summer, I’ll be featuring their experiences on my blog. This week, meet Lauren Jones, a rising sophomore who participated in the Major and Career Exploration (MACE) program this spring. Enjoy her story!

Dreams DO Come True. And Freshmen DO Get Internships!

By: Lauren Jones, ’14

It is the eve of my departure for my first job ever, and I’m admittedly a little nervous. However, I’m thrilled to have this fantastic opportunity! For the next month or so, I am going to be working as a Governor’s School Leader at the Summer Governor’s School for Agriculture (GSA) at Virginia Tech. I have experience working with children from pre-school to middle school, but this will be my first involvement with a program for high schoolers. I’m nervous about how I’ll handle working with this age group, but I have confidence that I can use the skills I’ve gained at William and Mary to my advantage!

Photo courtesy of www.aee.vt.edu

I became interested in this job after graduating from the GSA program in the summer of 2009. While I was a student, I found that the challenging curriculum, engaging staff, and friendly students all combined to create one of the most enriching and educational experience I had ever had. All of the coping, communication, and time-management skills I learned at GSA came in quite handy during my first year at the College. After I graduated from the program, I kept in touch with many of the friends I made, especially one of the leaders who was a great friend to me during that month, Sam. Sam’s dedication to the program, friendliness, and enjoyment of her job inspired me to apply to be a leader too!

This spring, Sam sent me the application to be a GSA team leader, knowing that it was something I was very interested in. I quickly scheduled an appointment with Ashleigh Heck at the Career Center. She helped me review my resume, gave me some tips on writing a quality cover letter, and encouraged me to apply, albeit a little late, for a chance to be considered. I completed the application, attacked my resume and cover letter (they were optional, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to include them!), and mailed it off with my fingers crossed.

After what felt like YEARS of waiting, I received a phone call one evening from the program’s director informing me that I had gotten the job! I could barely focus on what he was saying because I was so excited about the good news.

It’s been a month since I received that call, and I’m just as excited now as I was then! Tomorrow I start training, and I will be sure to keep you updated about my trials and triumphs over the next month. I believe that having secured this position as a freshman in college has helped me think more positively and confidently about my future. I don’t have a major (yet!), job history, or even fully formed idea of what I want to do with my life after graduation, but I think this job will help me understand my strengths and weaknesses and learn about the directions I might want to take with my education and career in the future.

I’m off to finish packing and get a good night’s sleep because I’ll have to be up pretty early tomorrow to get on the road to Blacksburg. Wish me luck!

~ Lauren J.