<p>I'm a first year college student and am using winter break to explore internships and other opportunities for this summer. What are some examples of good internships or summer programs to apply to? I'm interested in languages and international relations.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot!</p>
<p>You can look for internships, but don’t get your hopes up that you will find any. If you do find an internship, it probably won’t be paid. The summer coming up is one where you don’t really need to do anything particular - just do something: get a typical college kid summer job, go for a summer study abroad program, stuff like that.</p>
<p>Same question here, I am a freshman too.
I would like to get a head start by doing a summer internship this year already. I feel like in order to even be considered for an interesting internship in later years I have to do something this summer that makes me stand out and creates a positive snow-ball effect.</p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
<p>This stuff has been coming up quite often, recently. Don’t stress about finding powerful internships, especially at the expense of valuable experience in non “related” jobs. A job as a cashier at a CVS or a busboy at a restaurant or a lifeguard at a pool can help you quite a bit: you learn the value of earned money, you need to have some kind of interview skills, you have responsibility, and you learn to work for more than just your own sake (at any job, your performance impacts many other people, unlike in school, where your performance really only impacts yourself)</p>
<p>Seriously disagree.</p>
<p>Chase your dreams! Have some more attainable back-ups lined up, but absolutely go big. And if you don’t get your dream internship the first time, try again.</p>
<p>Get involved on your campus this spring semester to build your leadership experience and demonstrate your interest in your respective area. Take courses that would reflect your interests and would provide you background for an internship.</p>
<p>Fall of sophomore year, I applied for a U.S. Department of State summer internship to work at an embassy abroad. I just barely had a 3.0 GPA. My only resume assets were a medium-sized college club presidency (US politics related) and professional proficiency in the language spoken at the post I put as my first choice. I also had introductory coursework in both international relations and in the history of the region where I wanted to work. I was competing against hundreds of older undergraduates as well as graduate students with real world work experience under their belt. </p>
<p>I was wait-listed. </p>
<p>I followed up several times, politely and briefly expressing my willingness to give the work my all if I were eventually selected. The internship coordinator at the embassy appreciated my persistence and found an opening for me in a department that didn’t usually have State interns. It was the experience of a lifetime! I interacted with major U.S. leaders visiting our post on official business and did work that was beyond your usual intern office work. The experience was extremely fulfilling and I felt close to the diplomats in my selection, so I reapplied. The embassy invited me to return for a second summer–which was even better than the first, because my supervisors knew they could rely on me from the start.</p>
<p>If I hadn’t persisted with State, I would not have gotten the internship. Similarly, when I applied for a White House internship for the spring program a few years ago, I was interviewed and then rejected outright. I applied again and got the offer the second time around. Dedication matters!</p>
<p>The State Department won’t let you apply until the fall of your sophomore year for the following summer…so that’s not quite an option for you yet. But there are loads of other options! If you’re looking at USG, there are the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the CIA, your US Representative or US Senator (indicating on your application an interest in foreign affairs–the staffers might pair you with the international affairs LA), US AID, and the White House / EOP (National Economic Counsel; NSS; Scheduling and Advance), among others. There might be internships with NATO, the UN, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, and other international organizations. </p>
<p>In the private sector, you could apply to academic journals, magazines, and newspapers that have an international direction (Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, etc.). You could apply to think-tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations.</p>
<p>Seriously. APPLY. Yes, the odds are steep for every internship program and no, most of them don’t pay cash. But if you don’t apply, you don’t stand any chance at all, and the internships pay in invaluable experience that will lead to other opportunities down the road, as well as connections in your area.</p>
<p>There’s nothing <em>wrong</em> with scooping ice cream, working retail, delivering pizza, etc. But you’re not going to gain many marketable skills in your area that way. Sure, you’ll get customer service experience and probably some work organizing inventories and so on…you’ll have some pocket money…but you won’t have the chance to write a government cable, a policy brief, do research, interact with high level officials, and so on.</p>
<p>Cast a wide net and go big.</p>
<p>Thanks so much, amplifiar842! Hot suggestions were very helpful. I am going to be entering college this fall and have been looking for internships in the Washington DC area and you introduced me to some very good options.</p>
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