This college student wants “the perfect unpaid internship”–a governmental summer fellowship. According to the article, she’s got reason to be stressed because, “summer internships are the new Harvard: prestigious, costly, insanely competitive and the presumed key to all future success.”
I’m not sure what she’s so worried about.
I’m all for college kids showing initiative and using their summers to get good work experience. But why does she need an impressive-sounding internship that seems nearly impossible to get? What she needs is a place to do great work. And great work can be done in lots of places besides the “perfect internship.”
On and off campus, there are hundreds of summer opportunities for college students that would involve more challenges, responsibility, and learning than most fancy-sounding internships. The under-resourced non-profit down the street needs you a lot more than the government fellowship does. And if you’re willing to work hard enough, to take initiative, and to seek responsibility, you’ll probably get to do more than just file. You might court donors, plan events, evaluate budgets, or build a social media strategy. You’ll learn, you’ll make a difference in your community, and you’ll have an employer, one who actually knows you well, who can serve as a reference and maybe even as a mentor. Sounds like the perfect internship for the right student.
Employers (and colleges) care about the quality of your work as much or more than they care about where that work is taking place. Yes, some opportunities are much better than others. But you don’t always control where–from which class, to which college, to which internship or job–you get to do things. But you do control your effort to do great work wherever you are.
Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity. Focus on the work first and the opportunities will follow.
Here are a few past posts on this topic:
Five ways to thrive at your part-time job
If you want to make sure you get a job after college
Turn college into career prep
How to build a remarkable college career