<p>I am an incoming freshman at UChicago, and I can't wait to go to my school and become involved in everything. One thing that I have always been really excited to do at UChicago is have cool internships. I know that as a freshman it is probably more difficult to find a competitive one, and everyone I have talked to has said "start looking early and contact professors during O-Week", but I'm not sure where to look. I'm looking pretty much anything that will pique my interests (undecided major; I'm hoping that whatever internship I take will help me decide between a natural science or social science major).
Any advice in that regard would be greatly appreciated, and also, if anyone has any suggestions for other things to do over the summer in order to prepare for year one (other than relax), that would be appreciated as well!</p>
<p>Networking networking networking. Talk to professors, talk to professionals, any opportunity you can get, utilize it. Don’t be afraid to talk to people cold. Especially if you’ve got the hard skills, if you work hard you’ll find something. Some close friends are headed to Oracle and Raytheon, just to give you a bit of the picture.</p>
<p>Cool, thanks! Yeah, I’m looking for anything but research would be cool. Sorry that this is so unspecific; I’m so infatuated by all aspects of the potential positions that I have no idea what I’d like to pursue.</p>
<p>Yeah, you definitely have it better as a science-inclined person. I’d say jobs/internships/research in the natural sciences would the most common, and the social sciences aren’t too bad either. There’s a lot of competition for the Econ jobs, but look in the right places (the Decision Research Labs is one, the Becker Center in the Booth School is another. I once got to work indirectly with John List, which was pretty cool).</p>
<p>D started working in a lab right after classes started. she actually used O week to interview labs. Never hurts to start early. Faculty are impressed by initiative.</p>
<p>If you do get an interview, know what the research group does. That would mean going to the group website and looking up and reading some of the papers listed. Never mind that you won’t understand everything. Just having tried will get you points.</p>