When I arrived to MIT as a freshman, I had never done an internship…Months later, I had secured my dream internship – working at Morgan Stanley in New York City.
Practical Tips to Get Your Internship
Before we begin, remember to start early!! Because I didn’t start early, I missed out on the application to intern at J.P.Morgan (but I got Morgan Stanley so it turned out fine). However, it may not always end up fine if you miss an important application! Internship applications are earlier than you may imagine. A deadline could be in November or December.
Step 1:
My secret trick to finding the internship is to search directly for the internship you want in a search engine – this is how I found the Morgan Stanley Internship. I typed into Google: “Morgan Stanley Freshman Internship” and found it. One simple Google Search changed my summer and possible my career path!
Extra Practical Tip: Make a list of companies that you would like to do internships at and search in a search engine: “[name of the company] Freshman Internship”
Good Search: “Google Freshman Internship”
Bad Search: “Google Internship” or “Google Freshman”
Step 2:
Do a general search in Google “Internships for Freshman” – this is how I found the J.P. Morgan, Google, Facebook Freshman Internships.
Step 3:
If your university has a career site where they have a list of internships, look there! Sometimes you will find internships exclusively to students at your school.
Step 4:
Join a Freshman Internship Class if your school offers one. I joined a Freshman Internship Class at MIT and each week they would send us internships directed for freshmen.
Step 5:
Ask upperclassmen what they did their freshman year. I really recommend doing that – people are surprised when I tell them that big companies do offer internships for freshmen. I thought that all internships at big companies were junior year, but then a friend of mine who worked at J.P. Morgan freshman year told me about his internships, and then that is when I began searching.
Step 6:
Once you have found the internships, organize! Set up a word document with all the internships that you are eligible for and the deadlines for them.This is an example of one I made during Freshman year:
Have you done all of these steps? Start Now! Here is a document containing a checklist of these points in order to help you get started on your internships search: Internship Search Checklist🙂
Why is it a good idea to start searching freshman year?
Here are several benefits of an internship your freshman year:
1. First of all, there is no real pressure to get an internship for your freshman year. If you don’t get an internship, that’s completely fine and most people expect that. However, during your junior year, you will be more pressured to get an internship as you need to secure a job offer.
2. Secondly, if you do get an awesome internship your freshman year and liked it, you already know what you want to do and if you get can a return offer for the next summer, you will not go through much stress your junior year looking for an internship!
3. If you end up in an internship you don’t like, that’s good because you now know what NOT to do, so the next summers, there is still time to look for something different and try that out!
4. This ties in with point number 3. Doing an internship freshman year gives you two more summers to explore another group within the company, a different company within the industry or even a different industry!
5. The experience you gain at the internship will make you stand out. Having real work experience on your resume may make it easier to land the next job.
So, there are some great reasons to start looking for internships your freshman year. Have fun! 🙂