Now is the time of year when well-meaning adults and class­mates ask, “What are you doing this sum­mer?” While I tend to answer in tones of great despair, it seems that many Prince­ton stu­dents have their plans all sewn up.

Natalie Scholl, a junior in the clas­sics depart­ment, will be work­ing in the office of Con­gress­woman Michelle Bach­mann this sum­mer. Scholl was drawn to the intern­ship because it would be in her native Min­nesota, only a forty-five minute drive from her par­ents’ house. Scholl is explor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in law for after grad­u­a­tion, and said, “It’s good to be involved in local pol­i­tics.” Scholl cred­its her extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, which include lead­er­ship roles in con­ser­v­a­tive Prince­ton groups, for help­ing her to land the intern­ship. She made use of Career Ser­vices’ online tools and guide­lines in writ­ing her cover let­ter and orga­niz­ing her resume. Despite resources from Career Ser­vices, Scholl said that one of the hard­est things about the intern­ship search “was just know­ing where to look.”

Bran­don Zamu­dio ’14, a pol­i­tics major, will be intern­ing in France this sum­mer. Through OIP, he found a museum intern­ship at Musée de Com­piègne. “You can put that I’m not inter­ested in muse­ums,” Zamu­dio said, who looks at the intern­ship as “expo­sure to cul­ture and lan­guage.” Before com­ing to Prince­ton, Zamu­dio had never taken French, but is now look­ing at a French cer­tifi­cate. He sees the intern­ship as an oppor­tu­nity to “be inde­pen­dent inter­na­tion­ally and in a dif­fer­ent lan­guage.” Though the intern­ship appli­ca­tion was sim­i­lar to that of a domes­tic intern­ship, there was one notice­able dif­fer­ence – the inter­view was in French. Zamu­dio said he pre­pared for it “just like in any other inter­view,” though he took care to brush up on spe­cific phrases he thought he would need. “If I have a good answer but can’t artic­u­late it, what’s the point?” Zamu­dio said. Clar­i­fied 4/19/2012: Zamu­dio, while not explor­ing museum work as a long-term option, still looks for­ward to explor­ing related pro­fes­sions dur­ing his sum­mer internship.

Also plan­ning on an inter­na­tional intern­ship is Reena Glaser, a sopho­more in the psy­chol­ogy depart­ment. Glaser found her con­sult­ing intern­ship through Birthright Excel, which con­nects stu­dents with intern­ships in Israel. Before com­ing to Prince­ton, Glaser had thought of becom­ing a den­tist, and last sum­mer she shad­owed den­tists and other doc­tors. How­ever, through per­son­al­ity tests and ses­sions with Career Ser­vices advi­sors, Glaser found that con­sult­ing would be a bet­ter fit. She applied for around 30 intern­ships, but was rejected from all but this one. Glaser suc­ceeded in spite of the obsta­cles of chang­ing her career path in the last year and hav­ing “no busi­ness learn­ing on cam­pus.” Intern­ships are essen­tial for sup­ple­ment­ing a busi­ness resume.

Though Zamu­dio and Glaser’s intern­ships are tak­ing them to dif­fer­ent coun­tries, remote intern­ships allow the work to come to you. Lizzie Mar­tin ’14, who is in the Woodrow Wil­son School, has two remote intern­ships lined up for the sum­mer. Mar­tin said these oppor­tu­ni­ties are rare, but found “apply­ing for them to be rel­a­tively easy.” She will be work­ing for lit­er­ary agency and for a lit­er­ary mag­a­zine, which requires her to read man­u­scripts and write reports. Mar­tin has been work­ing for the lit­er­ary agency, which is based in New York City, since Jan­u­ary. Meet­ing with Career Ser­vices advi­sors helped Mar­tin land both jobs. “I have a solid resume because of the help I got in Career Ser­vices,” Mar­tin said.

These stu­dents all have dif­fer­ent plans for the sum­mer, but they all approached their searches with great dili­gence and patience. It can take time to find a dream intern­ship, and some­times the per­fect intern­ship doesn’t present itself right away. What counts is mak­ing the most of any oppor­tu­nity given.