Internship Season: What Do You Have Lined Up?

Ahhh, ’tis the season for making coffee runs, taking tedious notes and even brown-nosing – for some of us, at least. It’s internship season, the time when undergraduates from all over the world spend time at the companies of their choice, hoping to practice the skills they’ve learned all year in school.

A good internship is just a taste of the “real world,” a sample of what it’s like to be the first one in and the last one out. Glamorized by summer nights, freedom of young-adulthood and an earned living – provided that your internship actually pays instead of just offering college credit – the intern experience is a necessity for the college student, especially one at an HBCU.

For our success, as we all know, we have to work a little harder; we have to be a little tougher, to catch on a tad bit quicker than our counterparts. Having an internship only allows the average student – or even not-so-average student – to hone the skills and lessons they’ve paid for at their respective universities. It expands our networks, helps us to develop allies and “buddies” in our fields, and gives us the chance to have mentors to guide us throughout the remainder of our matriculation and into the professional world.

If you don’t have an internship already lined up, it may be a good idea to start now! Here’s a list of the top websites we found to be helpful with the internship search:

1. LinkedIn: this professional networking site completely took over and changed the game. Not only does this link professionals with others in their field or with those who have similar backgrounds, the job search tool here is excellent! It includes everything from internships to VP openings – very helpful. If you don’t already have a LinkedIn account, I recommend you make that your first step in your search.
2. Fastweb: old reliable Fastweb! For those of us who came into the collegiate world before Facebook and LinkedIn took off, we had Fastweb for our scholarship and internship searches. You can definitely kill two birds with one stone here! Just saying.
3. Internships.com: I think this one pretty much speaks for itself! Boasting a rolodex of 40,000 different internships from 20,000 different employers, this is sure to be a great start in the right direction.

Have any other internship sites in mind, or know of any internships that you’d like to share? Comment and let us know! We’ll feature it here!