Category: Intern and Jobs

Experiences of a College Student working at an Auto Shop

Crash Test Dummy : On the road of summer jobs, there are drivers and passengers. The author doesn’t want to be either.

When I set out to find a job this summer, I had a single objective in mind — to earn more than minimum wage. After spending the previous summer scrubbing popcorn, gummi bears and unidentifiable goo from a movie theater floor, I realized the purpose of minimum wage labor is to utterly destroy the human spirit. While the same might be said for work in general, I’d rather be paid more than $5.15 an hour for the destruction of my spirit.

Luxury Car Auto ShopIntent on my noble purpose, I tried networking with every rich person I’d ever met. I used to be a Boy Scout in a fairly affluent part of town, and this guy I knew from there offered me a job in his auto shop.

I should say I know absolutely nothing about mechanics. Anything more complicated than a see-saw is beyond the realm of my comprehension.

Furthermore, I hate cars. I hate them with a passion. I hate car commercials, I hate car races, I hate it when I get trapped in one of those guy conversations about Z3s and X1000s and all of those other cars that somehow appeal to primal male desire. I don’t even have a driver’s license — I’d rather ride the city bus than mess with horrible automotive things.

But Mr. Wallace offered me more money than anyone else. So I took the auto shop job.

Actually, it was a little more than an auto shop. Like Tom Cruise’s character in “Rain Man,” Mr. Wallace imports cars from foreign countries for extremely wealthy individuals who want extremely nice cars. Mr. Wallace’s auto shop modifies them to conform to all kinds of U.S. standards for emissions, instrumentation, door beams, etc. so the cars can be legally driven on the street.

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How to get into Hollywood as an Intern

Working in Hollywood as an InternGet your foot in Hollywood’s door. With these internships, you won’t just be taking care of the director’s dry cleaning or taking lunch orders with these internships. Most of the time.

Jay Leno needs help with his monologue jokes. Scripts for the Tonight Show have to be read and analysed. Reprise Records needs help coordinating concert tickets with radio stations, setting up interviews with label talent and managing mailings.

These are just some of the roles available for college student interns in LA, home of Hollywood and the beautiful.

Amy Wood, a senior Television and Radio major at Ithaca College, said she enjoys working on Ithaca College Television, but her main interest lies in producing documentaries. So she decided to go out to Los Angeles to work for Film Garden, a documentary production company.

Guide to the Goods

Step one
Be sure to consult the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, which list numerous internship and job openings in L.A. Also, by frequently reading these magazines, you will get a sense of the careers in the entertainment industry.

Step two
Send out your cover letters and resumes ASAP. These internships go fast and you don’t want to miss out.

Step three
Even though it seems hard to believe, these companies want you more than you want them. The free labor you’d be supplying is in high demand, so be selective when you have several offers.

Step four
Once you’ve picked the lucky company, work hard. When you are not given work to do, ask for something to do. By showing your interest and enthusiasm, you will gain more and more responsibilities.

Step five
Don’t forget to remind them exactly when you will be graduating in case they’ll need a full-time , paid employee later. Send a thank you card and always keep in touch.

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How to become a White House Intern this summer

White House logo 

There’s no better place to observe how government works than in the White House. The excitement of being in the White House complex and observing the daily workings of the executive branch is incredibly rewarding, if not always as glamorous and tawdry as the news would have you believe.

White House Intern ProgramI spent the summer before my junior year as a White House intern. Unlike many Washington interns, my assignments were meaningful and interesting and I was a valuable part of the team in my office. Better yet, I was given time to attend special speaker events sponsored by the internship office and to explore life in Washington. I also met a wide range of incredible young people and spent a great deal of time discussing complex issues with them.

Not everyone’s experience was as good as mine. Some interns felt they were given too much clerical work, or expected to work the same exhausting hours as paid staffers in their offices. The experience varies greatly depending on the office to which you are assigned; it’s best to talk to former interns before you apply.

Applying for a White House internship isn’t a difficult process – it just takes a sharp cover letter, a resume a one-page essay and three letters of recommendation to get your foot in the door. True, not all applicants get in by merit alone (unless you count well-connected parents and friends as personal achievements). Powerful people can do wonders for your prospects, but they’re not required.

Applicants must be:

    * At least 18 years of age on or before the first day of the internship
    * Enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program at a college or university, or graduated the previous semester
    * A U.S. citizen

Completed application materials must be submitted to Karen Race, Deputy Director and Intern Coordinator in the office of White House Personnel, at [email protected] prior to the following deadlines:

    * Applications due March 6, 2007 for Summer 2007 (May 22 to August 24, 2007)
    * Applications due June 26, 2007 for Fall 2007 (September 4 to December 14, 2007)

Getting an Application

There is an online application form which you can fill out. The Adobe PDF version is available here and the Microsoft Office DOC version is available here. To request an application from the internship office, call (202) 456-2742. Once the application is filled out, you need to submit it via Fax. The White House Intern fax number is (202) 456- 7966. You might also want to check with your college guidance office, which probably has a copy of the application on file. Or you can send an inquiry letter asking for an application – which is how I started off – to:

The White House Intern Program
Old Executive Office Building
Room 4
Washington, D.C. 20500

Upon acceptance, candidates must consent to a security clearance prior to their start date and a random drug test. All security measures are confidential and intended to protect the applicant as well as the Executive Office of The President. 

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Greed is Good: Summer experience of two Wall Street Interns

Learn why money never sleeps with a summer job on Wall Street.

Note: This article was submitted by one of our Guest Authors. However, they asked us to withold their name as they are currently employed with one of the companies mentioned in this article.Let us call them Bill and Jane

Wall StreetUndergrads looking to explore the world of high finance flock to Wall Street for summer internships. Post-grad, a job on “The Street” is more lucrative than ever, as firms have raised salaries and lowered time limits for promotions in an attempt to stave off the exodus of talented workers to Internet startups. The improving benefits mean that the competition for Wall Street jobs is fierce. The key to obtaining one is getting a foot in the door early.

The road to a high-powered job starts with internships. Just don’t be disappointed if the closest you get to learning to trade like the big boys is connecting their phone calls. But you never know. You could end up doing some cool stuff, too.

“I was interested in working on Wall Street my whole life. I started investing when I was thirteen. Last summer when I needed an internship and I was unable to get a job on my own, one of my dad’s friends who is a trader on Wall Street, he got me a job working on the New York Stock Exchange,” says Bill of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. “Sometimes I’d help answer the phone, take orders from customers, or update them on their orders or when they want to look at a certain stock trading on the floor. I served as a communications link between the broker I worked for and the client. I had to write up reports which wasn’t very complicated.”

Family connections help when it comes to finding jobs on Wall Street, especially with the smaller independent brokers. The most popular way to find an internship at Wharton is through the career services department, which supplied 36% of interns with jobs. The second most popular was through a friend or family member, with 29% of Wharton juniors obtaining internships this way. Since so many students are interested in interning with Manhattan firms, the more people one knows and the more experience one has, the better.

No matter what an intern’s credentials, there is always the possibility of poor treatment by superiors. The Wharton grad told a story about one of the “practical jokes” that was played on him as a naive intern.

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List of top recruiters,email addresses and other contact information

Below are 2 lists of companies that have recruited undergraduates and graduates alike for internships and full time in recent years. If you are searching for a job, these lists are a good place to start looking. However, they should not be seen as exhaustive lists! There are plenty of opportunities to be found with companies that aren’t listed on this page. If you find any problems with the links on this page (broken links, outdated email addresses, etc…) please let us know so we can fix it!

The first list contains 83 companies that have provided a specific contact person. Students and prospective candidates should get in touch with the contact person directly to inquire about a position. Check out the Cover Letters section if you aren’t sure what you should say.

The second list contains companies that have not provided specific contacts. Most of these companies have online resume submission pages. Check out the Resumes section if you need help tweaking your resume.

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