Summer Opportunities & Internships

Webinar Transcription

2021-12-19 Summer Opportunities & Internships

[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisor’s, webinars, and summer opportunities and internships, uh, to orient everyone with the webinars. We’ll start off with a presentation, then answer your questions in a live Q and a on the sidebar. You can download our slides and you can start submitting questions in the Q and a tab.

Now let’s meet our panelists. Hi everyone. Good evening from wherever you’re calling from. Uh, my name is Gagan Vaseer. I’ll be today’s panelist, a quick intro of myself. Um, I went to I’m from I’m from North Carolina. Uh, went to undergrad at Duke university. I was an early decision admin. So what that means is I haven’t thought of [00:01:00] one school that was duke got in and it was good to go.

Uh, went into duke as a pre-med student, uh, wanting to study neuroscience as life happened, interest change graduated four years later, uh, later with a double major in international comparative studies and political science. Um, since then I’ve had a very varied career, spent a bit of time with a teacher than a tech industry that consulting.

And currently I’m based out of New York city. And I work in the international development space and I’ve been working in the college advising space for a little over six years now. So very excited to talk to everyone tonight about the importance of cyber opportunities and internships and how to navigate them, uh, depending on where you are in your high school.

So before we dive in into the presentation itself, we’ll start off with a quick poll that Kayla will lead us on. Um, we’d assign the question [00:02:00] is what grade are you.

All right. And we will go ahead and start collecting those responses at this time. Uh, so, um, the poll has now opened in the meantime, Oregon. Uh, can you answer for us, um, what, what was your favorite course at duke? So, you know, again, weirdly because I went to duke as a pre-med major and I ended up switching.

My favorite course was actually a class on ethnic conflict. Um, I think it was called the cause of ethnic conflict and looked at, you know, why do wars happen? How do you prevent them? And how do like ethnic, um, I think diversity and nuances lead to internal strife. So, you know, now that I pursued a career in a development and diplomacy space, that course is when I lean really well into, like, it was just taught very well.

Um, so that’s always the thing. All right. Thank you so much for that. All right. So we’ve had some responses, our role in, [00:03:00] um, so we have no eighth graders tonight. We have a 14%, ninth grade, uh, 71% of you rolling in into 11th grade, uh, in 14% of you in 12th grade. So, um, juniors and seniors tonight. Um, so.

Alright. So again, this presentation will be applicable to really wherever you are in your journey. Even if you are, for example, you know, my dad was senior and you attended, we don’t have another, the summer between you between now. And when you apply, nonetheless, there’s an opportunities, opportunities to do internships, you know, even after senior year to get some pre-work done before college.

And then of course, you know, you always pursue internships, uh, while on call. So hopefully no matter where you are in your journey, We will all find it, uh, quite valuable. Okay. So know right now it’s December. Uh, and the question that often comes out, you know, obviously [00:04:00] right now, but also, you know, I work with a lot of students as well, uh, who are earlier in their academic career regarding, you know, is it too early to start for looking for opportunities for the summer?

You know, some are still six months away. When is the perfect. And, you know, the way I kind of think about this one, it’s never too early to start thinking about your summer. There’s some opportunities do have a very long onboarding process. What that means is you may have to formally apply now your background, check health screening, reference check, et cetera.

And so that can be a multi-month process. So you want to be able to start doing a research now, scoping out what opportunities exist. Um, so that when the time does come to apply, and if there is a very long application period, you already have that set. Similarly, you know, there are some students who decide that they don’t want to do like a pre-created opportunity.

They want to craft their own opportunity and really to do that, that requires extensive effort. Uh, you know, you want to think about, who’s going [00:05:00] to sponsor you as an advisor, you know, how will you, so how will you, uh, financially. Yeah. What are you actually going to do? Like a business plan, for example, or a research plan?

All those things sound easy on easy in theory, but are actually quite complex and fund paper. And so those require a lot of lead time to actually accomplish that. There are some internships, for example, that are also first come first serve, right? Like there might be only 10 or 10 spots available for a certain opportunity.

And you want to be one of the first few who apply by virtue of that. And of course, if you got to think about. The impact you want to have during the summer. And there are opportunity that start earlier. You may have, you may have the opportunity to start your summer internship maybe in the spring for a couple hours, that will, you’re building up that experience by the time you start the summer activity.

So I think long story short, you know, it’s never too early to start thinking about it, even if you don’t have anything locked down by now, it’s completely fine. You watch are scoping out your [00:06:00] interests, your passions, things that you might want to. That way you have a lot of runway between now and when you apply.

And of course, by when you start.

And so you, as you kind of think about, you know, again, it’s December, you know, you wanted to do something in may, June, July, what kind of things could you be doing, uh, you know, in front of you, if you could see the presentation, there’s a list of. A plethora of activities. One could do, but again, this is just a starting point, right?

Technically speaking, there’s no bounds to how you can spend your summer. There are some students who do college courses, some who ended up doing a job, whether it’s, you know, at a big bank or at, you know, um, a fast food place, it all, it all counts as experience. Some students prefer to do research, some do pre college programs, some launch their own business.

Again, there really isn’t any kind of bound to what you could do other than your imagination that maybe the financial resources. And then of course, [00:07:00] So really kind of think about, you know, what do you enjoy? What do you care about? Um, and that should kind of lead the charge for what kind of activities you could do over the summer.

Yeah, you’re all of you. I fathom are applying to college or in the process, little time to college. Um, and so the really, that’s probably top of mind, you know, how, how will these, some opportunities impact my college application and it really do so through a multitude of ways, you know, first and foremost is enable you to reveal to the university, your interest and passion.

So for example, if you say, you know, you’re passionate about healthcare and medicine, Volunteering at a hospital or doing research in the healthcare space is a very clear, tangible way to make that passion interest known some opportunities, also help reveal skills about yourself or, uh, [00:08:00] Experiences that kind of shed insight into your values.

You know, things like leadership, creativity, ambition, these are all skills and values that colleges really care about. And, you know, you, one could say on paper that I’m a great leader, but having applied experience, which comes to summer opportunities is a great way to show tangible example of you actually exhibiting those skills, um, in practice.

Third, of course is really around real world experience. You know, a lot of us have varied interests, um, that are oftentimes theoretical, meaning, meaning we know we’d like them on paper. We’d like them academically, but don’t know if we asked you to the application of it. And so, for example, if you really like finance, maybe you actually spent a summer interning at an interning at a, at a local bank and gain that real world experience one to ensure that you, in fact like that, um, But to a lot of times, college essays and interviews, we’ll ask you to talk about an experience you’ve had that [00:09:00] relates to your interests and passions.

And so some opportunities are a great way to have some, to talk about in those essays. And then eventually if the school has an interview, and of course, you know, as we talked about the entire process of applying to college, the goal to really differentiate yourself, you know, how are you different and unique from the other person applying from your school?

Um, and again, some opportunity. Are a great way to kind of show a signal to schools that, Hey, I’m a little different. I actually have put, you know, put pen to paper and really done something that exemplifies what I care about. And so they do play a large role broadly speaking in your outpatient process because they reveal things to schools that they really care about.

And so, you know, given that there’s tons of activities that one could do, and there’s, there’s obviously obvious importance of these opportunities to schools. How do you go about actually finding opportunities? [00:10:00] Yeah, I think we all do this, you know, first and foremost, you know, a good old internet source will get you very far.

There are luckily a lot of tools now between LinkedIn handshake, various social media websites that allow you to. See, what’s being offered to students. So, you know, if you don’t already have a LinkedIn profile, I would say definitely take five, 10 minutes, craft a LinkedIn profile. You know, I think no one is too young now to start a LinkedIn profile.

Um, so you would definitely do that again. Handshake is a great tool to really connect with recruiters that are trying to hire young talent so we can use that those opportunities. Put yourself out there and really sh shared the skill that you have. You also, of course, you know, all of you go to go to school.

So you, your teachers, um, clubs, professors, all of, all of them have either networks. They can do that. They can lean on or opportunities that are already exist. [00:11:00] Right. So for example, if you are someone who’s very passionate about, let’s say Canada, Maybe you talked to your chemistry teacher and ask them if they know of, you know, a place that you could probably spend your summer in, or maybe you’re part of a healthcare club or FPLA, and your club has a partnership with a local business where you could spend, um, a couple hours a week doing some opportunity, similarly, you know, lean on your friends and your family members.

You know, they have networks, they may have opportunities that they can provide. For your summer opportunities. And then the last two, of course, you don’t look at looking at a local. Non-profit looking at local universities, looking at local businesses. You know, the world really is your oyster when it comes to opportunity, as long as you are, as long as you know, what you want to do, or have some insight into what you want to do and are flexible in how you do it, you want to keep your eyes, your eyes open and really see where can you lend it hand.

I will know [00:12:00] it’s not gonna be the case and you may not even get paid for the summer, right? Like it could be a free opportunity as you do, but you might, you will, you will get paid in experience and skill. Um, so as long as you’re willing to kind of do the hard work, you will find that the people are receptive to giving, you know, younger students opportunities over the summer.

And so, you know, you’re here tonight with CollegeAdvisor. Can I think about, you know, how do you approach your summer? Luckily was called adviser. We do offer quite a bit of support and helping students find their summer opportunities. And we do so really through, uh, through numerous ways. First and foremost is, you know, we work with students very deeply for long periods of time to identify what are their, what are their interests, passionate, motivators, what are.

In the application that perhaps might have gaps or things they need to really explore further, you know, because we really take a very holistic approach to a student’s life cycle for the application. We’re able to identify strengths and [00:13:00] gaps and think about what are areas we may want to highlight and what experiences we definitely.

In advance of an application. So we’ll, we’ll kind of help you scope out what opportunities are valuable for you. Similarly, you know, for students who, who decide they want to do a passion project, I either want to, self-start something that’s linked to what they are care about. You know, we work with students to help draft what their pattern project might look like.

Um, you know, again, kind of, again, kind of going deep into what do they care about how much time do they have and the other nuances to ensure that there’s a proper use of time. And then we also have a vast repository of, of summer opportunities that our students are able to access and lean on to ensure that they’re actually getting, um, you know, clear and early access to summaries and opportunities.

So there’s tons of resources available. Uh, and then again, there’s many more that also exists that we work with students on to show that there’s effective engagement in the process. [00:14:00] Kayla, I saw you. You met, did you want to add something?

Oh, perfect. No Splenda. Oh, here we go. We have coming back. Yeah. All right. So I was just coming back on. So, uh, this is our second poll of the night. Where are you in the application process? So we’ll go ahead and start collecting those responses at this time. Uh, don’t be shy. And in the meantime, again, the gun, um, you know, you were talking about, uh, you know, summer opportunities and internships, maybe not even necessarily during the summer, but, um, did you have any experiences during college that are kind of memorable to you?

Yeah. So I guess, you know, later on in the process in our presentation, I’ll talk about my summers, but I was an, I was a resident assistant during my time at college. What that means is I was like an advisor to, uh, to a Domer of students. [00:15:00] And I was an advisor to the first year of class for all, for three years of my four year experience at duke.

And you know, for me, I had to think about leadership and it would have impact. It was a profound experience. And, you know, to this day I graduated now what, eight years ago, I’m still like what kind of, two of my residents, uh, because you know, they’ve already become like a family to me. So, you know, I sat in, you know, all of us, all of us have residents at sands.

If you live in an affiliate, if you live in a dorm and they do play a big role in your college career, especially if you’re a first year. Perfect. Thank you for sharing that. Of course. So the responses have come in. Um, so, uh, there meet the 3% of you haven’t started yet 47% of you say that you’re still currently researching schools.

Uh, 6% of you are currently working on essays. Um, and 13% of you are almost done, right? So a wide array of answers there. Probably, yeah, I think I’ll want to like figure [00:16:00] out the math a little later, because I think you said 40% of students were seniors, but we ended up having 19% of students, um, in, I guess currently applying.

So math is a method that unique, but I’m sure the, it all checks out, but overall great. Great to hear that, like, you know, especially for the seniors, we know it’s really crunch time. You have essentially what, three more weeks before deadlines really hit. Right. Um, so again, good luck to everyone apply. And for those of you who are, you know, earlier on in your, uh, in your journey, it’s never, it’s never too early to start thinking about college.

And so again, you’re already here today, you’ve already started thinking about it, uh, and let’s see how we can all help each other. Okay. And so, you know, when you’re applying, you’re probably gonna, you know, rarely do apply just one thing, unless you’re doing your own endeavor. Um, so you have a, you want to make sure you’re tracking all the deadlines are tracking all their.

Uh, you know, whether it’s resumes or transcripts or whatever you need to submit [00:17:00] as part of the process. So make sure you’re, you know, you are really tracking what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. One, you know, one display to show that you’re not missing any deadlines. You’ll find that for like internships or programs that are very selective, they tend to not be flexible with time.

What that means really is if a deadline hits and you miss it, you miss it. Right? So you want me to very time, we show that you were actually delivering. So, you know, use XL, use Google sheets, build a tracker use, whatever helps you, uh, stay on top of your deadlines to make sure that you are in fact submitting everything correctly.

This will also quite helpful when you, when you apply to college as well. Because I think when you’ve had a college, it’s the same kind of process, a lot of applications, a lot of various deadlines, various requirements. And by virtue of that, if you can get, um, an experience. All being organized and I mean, deadlines today, when you ask you to go to college, that experience will be, um, [00:18:00] hopefully dramatically easier.

And so when you’re applying to call it, when you’re applying to a program or internship, you know, it will be unique and to the, what you have to in terms of what you need to submit based on the requirements of that program. But as you’re often speaking, you’ll generally have a resume cover letter. If applying for more health oriented or research opportunity to often have to submit either research papers or research proposals, what do you want to research?

Some of the more selective institutions might offer might require, require interviews. Some might require background checks. So again, when you ask you sculpting out any kind of, some opportunities really be, you know, really do your due diligence and understand where their required. Um, so that you can get those things in advance.

I know for example, this is not on the list, but some, some opportunities might feel quiet recommendation. And if you, if you’re asking for a recommendation and you have to [00:19:00] ask for that weeks or months in advance for the recommender, and again, this kind of goes back to our first slide, which is around when is, when should you start thinking about it or how, when is too early, if you start today and you give your recommenders, for example, ample time to invite Joel butters, you’ll have a strong note letter at the end of the day.

So again, new way to think about the timeline, which are working with the requirements of the process itself, that, so that way you are, you know, you’re getting it done. And again, you’ll find that when you’re actually applying to college and for the seniors out there, you know, you’re well versed in this, uh, logs required.

Are very similar to what you will need to apply to college as well. Again, college process is slightly different because you of course have quite a bit of essays to write, but you know, when it comes to the overall purpose, you’ll find that they’re actually quite similar. So they mentioned earlier, there are some students who prefer to create their own opportunity.

Uh, you know, whether it’s a passion project, whether it’s amongst your own [00:20:00] business, whatever that might look like, um, You know, it’s a very meaningful endeavor, but it can be difficult. And so if you’re thinking about it, you know, there are a few things I would say that you should really evaluate as you approach those next steps.

First and foremost, it really kind of brain brainstorm and scope out your interests. You know, there’s a million, one thing you could spend your summers doing. Uh, but you don’t have that much time or, or that resources often, so you really want to figure out what do you actually want to do, right. Like, do you actually, do you want to do research?

Do you actually want to do like more applied work? Do you want to, you know, get like actual, like experience working somewhere? Right. We think about like, you know, how do you want to spend your time? What are your actual interests and what would you enjoy doing. Second, you wanted me to think about which organizations or people you want to work with.

You even when you’re kind of launching your own opportunity, you might be pitching a re uh, an internship to a business, right. That [00:21:00] may not offer, uh, an internship program. So again, you want to think about it, you know, where do you want to work? Whether it’s an actual, you know, like a business, maybe it’s a university research lab or, or anything in between.

Yup. Do your due diligence and figure out who’s offering what who’s doing. Interesting clue work. And where do you want to get involved? You know, of course you want to think about what will you actually be doing? You know? So what are the, what’s your actual proposal for how you spend your summer? And then of course, as you know, in the previous slide start, co-leading your documents, you know, resume, cover letter, et cetera.

So that way you can make a clear. For why you, why you, why you would, why you want to do what you do and how you’re going to do it. And then of course, you know, rarely do we, can we launch things on our own, especially, you know, when we’re young in our careers. And so you want to think about, you know, who’s actually going to sponsor your work, whether it’s, you know, who’s going to be advising it, um, who’s going to help fund your work.

Uh, you know, with this again, it’s an [00:22:00] internship or research or anything in between. So you want to, again, start very early in the process, especially if you’re going to your own opportunity. It just requires a lot more effort. I have a quite a lot more, you know, structuring of the work itself. So you want to start today.

So by the time, you know, March, April roll in, you have everything well-defined and essentially all you do is think about launching it for the summer.

So, I didn’t know what that previous slide you want. Think about advisers. You know, another way to talk about that is as mentors, you know, who’s going to mentor the work that you do, uh, akin to what we talked about earlier. Uh, you know, how do you kind of go about thinking about who could be, uh, the individuals who help you get internships is also kind of similar to this process?

Well, of course you don’t lean to your network. You know, parents relatives. Friends, their parents, really anyone, you know, who again is doing [00:23:00] either interesting work themselves or who may know somebody who’s doing cool work know, we all want to help each other at the end of the day. So really take, take advantage of what’s available to you.

Similarly, as I mentioned before, we look at your lean on your school as well. Teachers club. You know, whether you want to work with a teacher themselves, or if you’re your teacher registered in school and they have a network, you know, a lab at that school, or they’ve worked at a specific place, lean on them to, to get your foot in the door or help you meet people.

And then I think a tried and true method that I’ve used way too often is cold emailing. You know, especially if you’re, if you’re applying, for example, for a research job at, um, at a university emails are available online. It never hurts to call email people again, we’ll call email actually just means if you send them a LinkedIn message or you send them again, an email introducing yourself.

Telling them, why you want to do what they do and making a [00:24:00] case for yourself. And next slide, we’ll talk about what a cold email could look like. But I sent a lot of cold emails out, you know, for 15, 10 minutes, 15 to 20 minute conversation to really learn about what people are doing. And it’s the process isn’t very fast.

So again, as I noted earlier, start early, you know, if you’re going to be emailing 50, 50 people, that takes time, that takes effort. And in reality, not everyone’s going to respond. Right. So you, so if you start today, you know, you have multiple conversations, you slowly over time start building a relationship, they can lead into something.

Um, and this is what a cold email could look like. You know, essentially, you know, the purpose of cold email again, is to make a really quick introduction about who you are. Y you are emailing. And what’s your asking for? I said in the, in the case of this draft, you know, giving an [00:25:00] intro on like, you know, my name is so-and-so here’s what year I am, here’s where I go to school and here’s my interest.

You know, the next one we talked about, like, you know, here are my goals, you know, in this case is looking for paid summer internships. Um, and they’re asking for help. And then the request really is can you pass my resume along? Some emails might be a bit different. Some might be, uh, you know, should be made me a bit longer that kind of flesh out the details, a lot more wider emailing, but the core of it is, you know, you send an email, send my blindly to an individual you care about in to what they do, uh, in hopes of a, of a positive response.

I’ll just pause here to highlight Kayla’s comment in the chat. So. Please start, please go ahead and start submitting your questions in the Q and a section. And we will shortly get to those. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, I will give a [00:26:00] quick intro into how I spent my summers at duke. So as I mentioned earlier, I was, I was pre-med, uh, for, for, for quite a while at duke.

And so you’ll find that a lot of, lot of my summers were spent doing pre-med things. Um, And we’re working on in summer. So, you know, my, my first summer, uh, coming out of coming out of my freshman year, I volunteered at a local hospital. Let’s say my, my, my, uh, even, even pre pre duke. Um, you know, again, I had passion, passion in science.

And so my first summer, after freshman year of high school, I launched it at a local hospital. So I went to duke for undergrad as a volunteer at duke hospital over this. Um, again, it was very basic filing work, um, but in a clinic that was doing really cool work. So I was able to really get a deep dive into what the doctors were doing, you know, build partnerships with them, um, and, you know, get a perspective on, you know, how their career works.

Uh, for my sophomore year, [00:27:00] summer, I volunteered again at St at the same clinic. Um, and it was such a pre college program in, um, around medicine, uh, at Johns Hopkins university. And for me that someone was really focused on, again, doubling down on community service. I mean, that’s a very, that’s a very important, and then it starts shaping out, you know, what a pre-medicine could look like.

Uh, and then for my third summer, again, I tripled down on the, on the local hospital volunteering this time. It was, it was also at duke, but I volunteered at a different portion of the, of, uh, a different clinic. Um, does it get a different perspective on what living offered into the healthcare? And then, and I did a research program at north kinda state university in biochemistry.

Um, so again, at the time they mentioned earlier, you know how you kind of shape your summer’s really comes down to your interests, what experiences you want to develop for me, it was around public service around healthcare and it kind of holding. Portions of, of healthcare that when I was interested in, which was [00:28:00] research and application-based, um, and then of course, you know, to think that I felt the school would be interested in, um, how do you spend your summer again?

W will vary quite a bit. Clearly. I didn’t really, I didn’t really do a full-time job at any point in my high school career. Recognize some of you have some of you do summer jobs. That’s perfect as well. Um, I can find what you care about. Fine. Would you consider stain for a summers period? Um, and what will allow you to kind of show your best self, uh, in a span of generally what, but it’s 10 to 12 weeks.

And then how did these experiences kind of help set my current path? Obviously, as I mentioned you, I didn’t, I helped me to not to, uh, pursue a career in healthcare. Although I started off my duke career, uh, as pre. Nonetheless, these experiences gave me clarity on, you know, what did I care about? What do I want to study the type of career I wanted to pursue?

You know, I think after spending all my school career in the [00:29:00] health space, I eventually realized that I did not want to work in health anymore, which was actually quite helpful because. Yeah. Had I kind of gone down that path. It’s like a full-time career, you know, maybe I would have not, not been super happy with the career path that I chose.

So I think summer internships are a low cost way, low cost, almost no cost way to test out the waters and really see what you, what you liked and what you don’t like. Um, you know, the, somebody who ships again, even though I didn’t pursue that, the industry gave me a network. I could leave. Am I in my college career at duke, like I heavily leaned on the people I did internships with to get me future internships, to build on, build on their networks.

Uh, you know, because I had done good work with them for, for three plus years, you know, they had trust and faith in me and were open to kind of sharing my name and sharing my resume with their colleagues. Um, and then of course, as I mentioned earlier, summer is a great way [00:30:00] to build skills. And so, you know, I was able to build analytical skills, technical skills.

Uh, you know, leadership skills, communication skills, all those things that, um, ultimately enables me to do as you do, actually, what I, what I wanted to do, um, and skills that weren’t confined to any industry. And so, you know, I know we’re getting close to our Q and a, because that’s the core of our presentation.

Um, in terms of advice I would give to everyone on the call tonight, you know, definitely start early. No, it’s never totally thinking about college. Never, never think about summer internships. Uh, you know, you want to be the first person in the door and you want to make sure that you get the best opportunities you can get.

Uh, they really allow you to shine in the, in the best way possible. So start early start thinking about what you care about. Um, so that way, when the time does come, you know, you can put your best foot forward. And then I would say, secondarily, you know, [00:31:00] don’t be afraid. Seek opportunities outside your comfort zone.

You know, even if, like, for example, like let’s say you really like math, um, you know, try and try a summer doing something that’s maybe not math oriented and see how that goes. Right? Like a lot, a lot of life is getting varied experiences and seeing how they flush out. You may not know what you like or dislike until you’ve tried it.

And then, you know, from a college perspective. Cause I know that’s always top of mind, you know, colleges want to know like, you know, how do you do a different opportunity? Life life happens, our interests and passions change. And so, you know, being able to say like, you know what, I’ve really liked math, but I spent a summer doing a dance camp because I wanted to try out different skill is a very strong narrative.

Um, and again, I think from a course of perspective, you know, it’s, it’s a growth opportunity for you to really try out things that, you know, may not fit in the mold that you were hoping, but allow you to kind of flex some muscles that maybe you didn’t know you had, or to build those. [00:32:00] And I will.

All right, everyone. Um, so at this time, uh, that is the end of the presentation part of the webinar. I hope you found this information helpful and remember that you can download the slides from the link in the handouts. Now, moving on to this live Q and a I’ll read through the questions you submit in the Q and a tab, paste them into the public chat so that everyone can see, um, and then read them aloud so that our panelists can give you an answer.

And just as a general heads up, if your Q and a tab, isn’t letting you submit questions, just double-check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page. All right. So with that being said, let’s go ahead and. If I may just chime in here, you know, there’s, there’s quite a few of us on the call tonight.

So what I would request is when submitting your questions, definitely ask questions that you think at least one of the person on the call might have as well. [00:33:00] Um, I know, you know, we all have unique cases and we all want to get our personal questions answered, but for the sake of the entire group, you know, please do think about, will my question be helpful to somebody else?

That’s wonderful advice. Um, so with that being said, uh, we already have one question. Uh, so the first question for you is, you know, I recently created a LinkedIn profile. How do I find opportunities? Yes. So know opportunities just don’t don’t just, don’t pop up having first and foremost. Wonderful. You started your LinkedIn profile, you know, make sure it’s it’s fully.

You know, make sure you have a section about doing your intro. What you’ve done include your clubs that you’ve participated in, include your activities, include your coursework, make sure that somebody goes on your page. They know who you are, but then really think, you know, do we figure out like, you know, what opportunities exist, especially on the LinkedIn world is going to be around [00:34:00] networking, you know, go, go find profiles of people who are doing interesting work.

People who use. You know, either think could be a good mentor for you or could give you good career advice and shoot them a message. You know, it doesn’t cost anything to send a message on LinkedIn and you’ll leave. You’ll be surprised how people will ask you to respond to you. You know, I get it. I get a handful of messages every week asking for five, 10 minutes on a phone call.

And I will always say yes to somebody, but it doesn’t cost me anything to have a conversation. And if somebody sends me a message and says like, Hey, I like what you’re doing. I’m interested in learning more. That you know, that kind of starts triggering a series of events that later down the line, I have an internship available.

I know that. Oh, so so-and-so so-and-so and I had a conversation. They’d be a good fit. So, you know, in the notion of kind of cold emailing people, finding mentors, I think LinkedIn is a great way to do that. Again, find profiles that. People who are interested in, so then I [00:35:00] would send them a message and get the ball rolling for possible mentors.

And who could give you an internship in the future.

All right. Um, so the next question for you is what types of summer jobs would be helpful for getting into college? I want to go into a pre-med program. Yeah. So yeah, I guess in the, in the pre-med space at the it’s. I would say a bit different, you know, you obviously want to get like more healthcare oriented experiences.

Um, doesn’t always mean a job, right? Like, as I mentioned, I spent three years volunteering at a local hospital. Um, very, very rarely will hospitals pay a 15 year old to do something. And so you oftentimes are giving out free labor, right? So like research opportunities, volunteering at hospitals, you know, being an EMT.

For example, if you’re able to do that, No shat even like shadowing, right? Like maybe you, maybe you can actually [00:36:00] do something physically, but like you’re able to shadow a doctor and see what they do. All those things count as experience. Ultimately the best thing you can do or experiences that allow you to one, learn something relevant to what you care about to allow you to build skills, uh, you know, technical skills or soft skills that will be valuable to you.

And then third, give you clarity on what you care about. You know, I think if, if, if a summer opportunity meets those three thresholds, um, it’s, it’s worth his time worthwhile spent, uh, in the case, you know, let’s say you’re not in the healthcare space and you’re thinking more of like a typical job. Right.

You know, what I tell my students is, um, whether you’re interning at like Goldman Sachs or you’re, or you’re working as a fry cook at McDonald’s, both of the experiences can be equally important. Invaluable, depending on what you learned from it. Um, and how much impact you actually had. Right? So like [00:37:00] you want, you want to think about, you know, what will you, what will you actually be doing in your time there?

And what kind of skills are you building? Yup. Focus less on brands, focus less on, you know, the prestigious something and more around, well, I learned something from this, from the, from the two, three months I’m doing, I’m doing my internship. Hopefully that with. All right. Yes. That was very helpful. Thank you for that.

Um, next question for you, how do we apply for opportunities to work at a hospital that during this? Yeah, so hospitals are, are, uh, are a bit more unique, right? So, so like a lot of times hospitals will have structured programs, which if you’re looking for like a true. Volunteering internship program, internship activity, but a lot of times they will have structured programs because to join speaking, to work at a hospital, you have to go through a background check, you have to get all your shots.

Um, you know, there’s generally some kind of training, some matching [00:38:00] period. So I would say, you know, looking at this and wherever you’re located, research, the local hospitals that exist in the area. Yeah. So a quick Google search of a hospital name plus summer summer volunteering, you’ll find that you’ll find a lot of major hospitals that do have something of that sort.

If you’re in a situation in which you’re hot, when you’re in a hospital that doesn’t offer that, um, this might be an opportunity for you to either email the HR people at the hospital. And then the names are often available on their website. I would kind of again, pitch something to them. And this kind of goes back to what we talked about.

How do you kind of build your own. Uh, you know, you had to kind of pitch yourself as to why you want to do whatever you want over the summer. And you have to, you have to have clarity around hairs. I have 10 weeks of summer. Here’s what I want to do. Here’s, here’s how it will benefit you and then make your case for it.

So if it’s structured, I think that’s obviously a lot easier. Those have very clear deadlines for properties that are less structured at home. Yeah, it [00:39:00] is on you to kind of look at the network, figure out who can get you the opportunity, whether it’s HR, whether it’s an actual doctor, you can shadow and again, pitch why you want to do it and how you’re going to benefit them.

All right. How can a freshmen write about their achievements, uh, when they’re just starting, when they’re just starting high school and don’t really have, you know, much to say about themselves at that point in time. Right. So, you know, we all have achievements and, you know, for, for someone who’s a fresh, a first-year student know middle school, middle school does count, right?

Like that experience that doesn’t just go away because you started a new year. So definitely, you know, if you’re younger and your, um, If you’re younger in your high school career, you can lean on seventh and eighth grade a bit more there just recognize the fact that, you know, if you’re in ninth grade, you know, employers, researchers, [00:40:00] et cetera, likely aren’t going to give you the big media things to work on by virtue of the fact that you have limited experience.

But I think it’s completely fine to lean on your, to your eighth grade work that you’ve done. Um, as you kind of build, you know, your high school career and your high school experience.

All right. Um, the next question for you, is there any advice that you have for finding internships, uh, when it comes to international students? And I think whether you’re international domestic, the rules are the same. Um, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s the, I’m looking at local hospitals, universities, nonprofits, whether it’s through networking or.

Structured programs. I don’t think the process changes by any means. The only nuance would be if you’re a national student looking for an internship in the us, you know, there are oftentimes laws that, that, uh, limit what you can and cannot do. [00:41:00] And employers may have their own parameters for hiring, um, you know, non us or non-citizens.

Uh, non us citizen interns, but aside from like the legal nuances that exist, um, I think the fundamentals are the same across.

Oh, right. Um, well we have come move. We’ll wait kind of a few minutes, uh, for more students to submit any more questions if they have them. Um, so right now we are completely out and the main point I’m going on. Um, is there anything that you feel like, you know, if, if people only remembered one single thing.

From tonight’s session. What would you say is the most important thing for them to remember as just a quick kind of summary note? Yeah. Again, I think that the big thing is like, you know, there’s no, there’s no perfect some opportunity, right? Like [00:42:00] everything will have pros and cons, you know, whether you’re interning at NASA or you’re again, you know, working at Wendy’s, there’ll be, there’ll be, there’ll be nice points and they’ll be points that you’re like, oh, I think there’s gonna be better.

Right. So I think when you understand that, like there’s no perfect summer that. Limit the stress that, that, you know, finding, finding the right opportunity, perhaps causes again, I would say focus on, you know, you’re, you know, you’re spending eight to 10 to 12 weeks doing something, will you actually enjoy it?

Right. You’re, you’re giving away your time, your skills, your, your whatever. And so, you know, make sure that you, you, you just say that you enjoy because the narrative part of it, you know, how you talk about it later on, in. That can all be worked through, but when you’re acting in the middle of it, you really have to enjoy the work that you do to find, you know, find your interests, find your passion and your sending aligned to that.

Don’t worry about perfection. Perfection is, uh, can be found later on. All [00:43:00] right. Uh, we have one more question. Rolling. Uh, do colleges offered tours in the summer? So it depends on the college. Most colleges do. Um, so when I was at duke, I had. All three summers doing co giving college tours. Um, it’s a great, it’s a great way.

It’s a great time to, you know, go to a college, um, kind of scope out on it. It’s fairly empty campus with all that’s offered, uh, which I think is quite quite of a benefit. I think the only challenge perhaps, uh, for visiting college over the summer, usually don’t get you to you. Don’t get to like see the school experience.

The school is empty. There aren’t a class that often happening, or they’re only summer, summer classes happening. So that’s definitely a parse down version of college life. Other than that, it’s a great way to explore campuses. And again, a lot of students will spend the summer after their junior year, um, you know, making their tour around colleges to see what’s [00:44:00] being offered.

I will just know. I think, you know, in the era of COVID. There are probably some schools that have that don’t offer this anymore. I know a lot of schools have gone to a virtual tours. And so before you, you get in the car and head, head out to a campus and show that they in fact are offering, offering college.

All right gone. Um, another question for you, um, a student is asking and this kind of correlates with what you’ve been, um, kind of a few points that you’ve already brought up about. Um, and so, you know, she she’s asking which book, gee choose, you know, a very prestigious summer program, which I did not like, um, or a small program, which I do like, uh, you know, which one would be better for college admission.

So maybe you can, you know, kind of, you know, uh, revert back to your points that you had about brands, but then also just talk about authentic fit as usually do as college advice. [00:45:00] So again, you want, you want to go, I think you have to tell us point brands. Don’t let brands dictate what you do over the summer.

And this is why, you know, to go. I say, you know, I’m working as like a Goldman Sachs or if NASA can be, can be the same as working at the McDonald’s, you know, spending your summer as a fry cook at McDonald’s. Um, I mean, ultimately it’s about, you know, where do you fit? Where can you have impact. And what, you know, what makes most sense for you right there?

The last thing you want to do is spend a summer at a heavily branded place, but then really learn nothing from that and have nothing to write about and coming out of that experience with little to no skill attainment, but you’re better off doing something that again, reflects part of your narrative, aligns to your values, allows aligns to your interests and will give you time to do cool work, do actual.

Um, and hope you come out of it, having learned something. So I would say, you know, think about, you know, [00:46:00] what do you care about? What do you enjoy and have the opportunities that are available to you, which will allow you to ask you attain good skills, um, that aligns your values when it comes down to it.

You know, we work with our students to understand how does, you know, there’s some opportunities to fit into their narrative, right? So you did, does it make sense? That’s probably the entire story. Uh, of what they did and you can get a talk about it in a way that we say very clear to admissions officers that they actually did impactful work.

Right. So I would say, you know, leave the brand aside and we think about the work itself and will you enjoy doing it? And I think that’s going to give you clarity around on how to spend your summer. Again, this is true. This is true for everybody, right? Like whether it’s a, you know, a summer program, Usually in between two university is do research with faculty, you know, maybe one had a Nobel peace prize, Nobel prize one.

Doesn’t [00:47:00] let all that go and think about the core work itself because when push comes to shove, that’s what you’re going to lean on. You have to be happy doing that. Okay. Um, it’s a college summer school program better to apply to than a summer internship. Uh, great question. So I will just know broadly, like summer school programs.

I know a lot of students, for example, will do like a lot of schools offer summer, summer youth, summer programs for youth. Again, I did one, um, I know a lot, a lot of students do one would the presumption that it’s going to have a heavy influence for them to get into that universal. So, for example, um, I didn’t mind Johns Hopkins and one could argue that by doing that, maybe we have a better taste for it really.

Is that true? Right. So, you know, do the, do do the summer in the summer school program, if the [00:48:00] program itself independent of the school is one you enjoy doing, right. It should not be the, a program should not be the fact that it might give you a leg up at that school because that’s. Very minimally the case, uh, in terms of countries in between summer program, you know, assuming that you are doing the program because you like the program itself and had nothing to do with the college itself, um, you know, between the program or the summer internship.

Again, this kinda goes back to what I mentioned earlier. It’s around it’s about the fit, you know, where will you, where will you, will you learn something? If you, if you look at a profile, you know, what’s, what’s missing, right? Like for some states. Uh, Senator program makes more sense because maybe they need to round out their academic interest for some students they may already have had that portion figured out and they need more applied work.

So you, so you actually look at your, look at your profile, look at your activities you’ve already done with your academics, and then really [00:49:00] think through what portions of that, of that puzzle are missing. And then based on what’s missing, laid aside internship or summer pro or summer school program going to fit that, put that, uh, piece.

Oh, right. Um, well, all questions at this time have been answered. Um, so we will continue on, um, So very quickly, everyone. Uh, this is just a reminder of what we offer here at college adviser. Um, so for those in the room who are, aren’t already working with us, the college admissions process is overwhelming for parents and students alike.

Our team of over 280 admissions experts and former admissions officers are ready to help you and your family navigate this all in one-on-one advising. Uh, just want to let you know that in the most recent admission cycle, our students were accepted into Harvard at three times the national rate and accepted into Stanford at [00:50:00] 4.4 times the national rate.

So please do go ahead and sign up for a free consultation with us by going to CollegeAdvisor.com and calling the number at the top of the screen or clicking, get it get started. And then once you’re registered for our free web platform, you can explore webinars, keep track of application deadlines, and search for summer opportunities.

All right there on our website. All right. And, uh, at this time that concludes our Q and a, um, and at this time, thank you everyone for coming out tonight. Thank you to our panelists, Legon, uh, who provided a lot of wonderful feedback. Um, and that is the end of the webinar, um, on your screen, uh, here’s the rest of our December series.

So please do go ahead. Um, and mark those dates in your calendar. Uh, we had a really great time telling you about summer opportunities and internships tonight and hope everyone has a wonderful evening and enjoy your holiday break. [00:51:00] Thanks everyone. Have a fantastic evening. Bye everyone. Bye bye.