As soon as you set foot on Princeton’s cam­pus, hun­dreds of sum­mer oppor­tu­ni­ties are avail­able to you —study abroad pro­grams, sum­mer intern­ships, sum­mer fel­low­ships, and more. There are so many oppor­tu­ni­ties and so many paths to con­sider. Where do you start?

Nav­i­gat­ing cam­pus resources can be over­whelm­ing. The good news is that an event is fast approach­ing where you’ll be able learn about a vari­ety of Prince­ton resources for intern­ships — all in one place. On Novem­ber 16^th, Career Ser­vices will be host­ing the All-Princeton Resource Fair for Sum­mer Intern­ships & Fund­ing.   From 1–4 pm, Frist Lower Level will turn into your “one-stop smor­gas­bord” for intern­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties and fund­ing options.

“This fair is a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to learn about the dif­fer­ent intern­ship pro­grams and fund­ing options avail­able specif­i­cally to Prince­ton stu­dents,” said Jen­nifer Pru­den­cio, Assis­tant Direc­tor of Intern­ships and Career Coun­sel­ing and fair manager.

“Depart­ments and pro­grams attend­ing will together rep­re­sent hun­dreds of intern posi­tions!” The fair will include oppor­tu­ni­ties as diverse as Princeton’s many depart­ments. “Pro­grams will be rep­re­sent­ing areas such as nonprofit/public ser­vice, arts, edu­ca­tion, enter­tain­ment, inter­na­tional affairs, entre­pre­neur­ship, tech­nol­ogy, research, finance, and envi­ron­ment, to name a few,” said Prudencio.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing depart­ments and pro­grams (so far) include: Andlinger Cen­ter for Energy and the Envi­ron­ment, Cen­ter for African-American Stud­ies (CAAS), Davis Inter­na­tional Cen­ter, Keller Cen­ter for Inno­va­tion in Engi­neer­ing Edu­ca­tion, Pace Cen­ter for Civic Engage­ment Guggen­heim Intern­ships in Crim­i­nal Jus­tice, Prince­ton Intern­ships in Civic Ser­vice (PICS), Prince­ton Alumni Weekly (PAW), Prince­ton Enter­tain­ment Intern­ship Pro­gram, Prince­ton Envi­ron­men­tal Insti­tute (PEI), Prince­ton in Asia (PiA), Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Office of the Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Art Museum, Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Ger­man Sum­mer Work Pro­gram, Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Invest­ment Com­pany (PRINCO), Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Pro­gram in Global Health and Health Pol­icy, Princeton’s Inter­na­tional Intern­ship Pro­gram (IIP), Princeton-Blairstown Cen­ter, Stu­dent Activ­i­ties Fund­ing Engine (SAFE), and the Woodrow Wil­son School Under­grad­u­ate Program.

One of the advan­tages of intern­ship fairs is their unique propen­sity to open up your options. As you wan­der among the many booths and chat with var­i­ous rep­re­sen­ta­tives, you may just stum­ble on an oppor­tu­nity that you never would have con­sid­ered oth­er­wise. “When I meet with stu­dents, I often get the ques­tion, “how do I nar­row down my options while stay­ing broad so that I don’t miss any oppor­tu­ni­ties?” said Prudencio. “Coming to this fair will help you do just that: learn about new fields or orga­ni­za­tions that you may have not con­sid­ered before.”

In addi­tion, the fair will dis­play many fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able through Prince­ton. “You will also learn about some fund­ing resources for unpaid intern­ships that you may secure on your own,” said Pru­den­cio. “These appli­ca­tions are dif­fer­ent from apply­ing directly to an intern­ship posi­tion.  Since many of them require that you secure an intern­ship on your own, this can help you to really start think­ing out­side of the box!”

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the new stu­dent fund­ing por­tal called Stu­dent Activ­i­ties Fund­ing Engine (SAFE) will also be attend­ing the fair. Stu­dents can learn about this new resource, which will help them nav­i­gate fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in one cohe­sive website.

As Pru­den­cio stresses, there’s no time like the present to start plan­ning for sum­mer 2013. “Many of the appli­ca­tions are still in the midst of prepar­ing to go live,” said Pru­den­cio. “Dead­lines for these pro­grams and fund­ing resources may begin as early as Decem­ber, so this will help you plan well in advance…You can also learn about the appli­ca­tion process and how to pre­pare your own application.”

Plan­ning on attend­ing? Pru­den­cio explains how you should pre­pare. “You can visit the most up-to-date list of attend­ing programs/departments on Tiger­Tracks,” she said.

“Read about the pro­gram on their web­sites and come with ques­tions. Imag­ine your­self prepar­ing to apply for these pro­grams – what would you like to know that you can ask in per­son? Areas to con­sider include prepar­ing your appli­ca­tion, under­stand­ing the program’s time­line, and learn­ing about the intern­ships them­selves (orga­ni­za­tions, ben­e­fits of par­tic­i­pa­tion, etc).”

Finally, you don’t have to break out the tux for this event. Casual or busi­ness casual is fine!