Q: (from @AliciaC20O)@InternQueen I graduated last December but found an internship that only wants current students. Should I still try to apply?
A: Hi Alicia! Thanks for the note. Over the past two years, I’ve seen an increase in college grads looking for internships. Many employers have formal HR policies in place that prevent students that cannot get college credit from interning. That being said, the smaller/boutique employers normally do not have these policies. In fact, a few employers even look for college grads. Off the top of my head, I know the David Stark Design Company on my website, http://www.internqueen.com, looks for recent college grads. Good luck with your search and don’t let rejection get you down. Keep trucking along
Q: (from @bmehciz) @InternQueen What should I do if I just excepted an internship and was offered my dream internship right after? can I do 2 at once? ahhh!
A: Hi Brittany! Thanks for tweeting. Do not worry. We can fix this issue. First, you have to know that this is very common. Many students apply for more than one internship (and I suggest they do!). And sometimes, you get so excited about that first offer that you say yes right off the bat. OR you don’t think you will land another opportunity so you say yes to the first thing that comes your way. My previous blog entry talks about quitting an internship which I never recommend. However, if you haven’t started the internship yet, that’s another story. Here are your two options:
1. Find out the time commitments from both internships. If they both only want a few hours per week, you might be able to do both. Check your school schedule and make sure you have enough time for eating, sleeping, studying, and being somewhat social – if you have the time – go for it! I doubled and tripled up on my internships because I learned how different office environments and different industries were run.
2. Call up the internship coordinator who offered you the first position. I really suggest a call over an email because it’s that much more personal. Be honest. Tell the woman that you were offered another opportunity that you really think is a great fit for you. Tell them how wonderful you think their company is and how sorry you are for any inconvenience you’ve caused. Tell them you’d love to stay in touch and actually stay in touch with them. You never know when another opportunity at that company might come your way or where that internship coordinator could end up.
Andrea Teggart was an Intern Queen intern for Summer 2010 and is now an Intern Queen Campus Ambassador.
Interning on-campus allows you as a student to take classes, but work as an intern. These internship positions can still be AMAZING experiences, and end up being very convenient! There’s no need to look for a sub-leaser, no need to stress out about how to get to your first day of the internship, no need to worry if you’ll be able to graduate on time. YOU know your own campus so well already and interning while in school gives you the perfect balance of schoolwork, internship experience, and opportunity.
Many on-campus internships are PAID, which means you aren’t draining your bank account and you are at least getting some sort of income. A lot of internships in larger cities with larger companies aren’t paid, plus you are paying to move there, etc. so interning on-campus is a financially wise choice! Also, many college students are looking for a part-time job while in school and can intern instead. This is giving them real-world experience that relates to what they want to do long-term after graduation.
There’s different ways to intern on-campus as well. Most schools have on-campus internships available for students through different academic departments. I’m interning on-campus this spring with the Ohio University Alumni Association and will be interning 20 hours and taking classes simultaneously. I have a few friends who intern with Dining Services as a design and marketing internship. I also know that sometimes different student organizations have internships available for students who are looking to get more involved.
Another way to intern on-campus is with an outside company or organization. Right now, I am an on-campus intern/campus representative for MasterCard’s Are You Credit Wise? financial literacy campaign. Interning with an outside company lets you “run the show” at your own school and tailor the job or task to your own campus and your own community. I have a good friend who has interned on-campus at OU working for Universal Pictures for the past three years! She mentioned to me that she liked interning on-campus because she isn’t forced to compromise her schedule and her internship hours can vary and change on a week-by-week basis. That’s what I’ve appreciated with my current internship: schedules are crazy and plans change, so it’s AMAZING that the internship fits around my own schedule.
Another quick reminder about on-campus internships; a lot of them allow you to intern for a longer period of time. That means MORE experience for you. My friend who works for Dining Services has been a design intern since freshmen year and has the job until graduation. She has the perfect balance of schoolwork and internship hours and keeps building her portfolio with design work produced in class and also with her internship! The experience she is getting from her internship correlates perfectly with what she is studying and will only make her more marketable after graduation.
Learning the value of interning on-campus while in school is a great lesson to learn and opportunity you don’t want to pass up. Contact your university’s Career Services Department, financial aid department or your academic advisor to look up internship opportunities for you! Also, start researching companies that will allow you to be an on-campus intern or campus representative. Intern Queen is a great resource with many companies posting virtual internship opportunities that allow you to intern while in school! Interning while in school gives you a perfect balance of classes and work; good luck in your on-campus internship search!
This is a blog from contributor, Molly Gallagher. Molly interned at Time Out New York last summer and was kind enough to share her experiences and what she learned!And don’t forget to apply for the Time Out New York Kids Magazinehere.
When I started my internship at Time Out New York magazine this summer I knew writing was a possibility—I never imagined that I would end my internship with two clips in the magazine. Time Out was unlike any of my previous internship experiences. Over the past four summers I interned in the editorial department at POZ, the fashion department at Elle, the editorial department at US Weekly and the editorial department at Vanity Fair after Time Out. I worked closely with the deputy editor and features editor at Time Out. At the other magazines I interned for this was unthinkable. It was invaluable experience to spend a month of my summer receiving fact-checking assignments from the features editor. When I worked on articles with the deputy editor I sat next to her desk, while she showed me my edits. The deputy editor assigned my first article. The assignment was to write about romantic weekend getaways that fit into a Time Out New York reader’s budget and ability to travel. The hardest part about writing for a new publication is learning the style. The second article I wrote was about networking in NYC. For this article I contacted Lauren Berger, the Intern Queen, Trudy Steinfeld, executive director of NYU’s Wasserman Center for Career Development, Chandra Turner, the founder of ED2010, Stuart Schultz, coauthor of The Gradspot.com Guide to Life After College, and Maxine Martens the CEO of Martens & Heads. Writing the article not only allowed me to learn about networking, but I was able to network while writing the article. Here are the biggest tips I took away from my research:
1. Don’t discount anyone! Treat everyone you meet as a contact and important person to know. While you may think the secretary doesn’t know anyone—she might be best friends with an Editorial Assistant or something else at that publication. One of the best parts about being at Time Out was that I became close with high-position editors like the deputy editor and features editor, but I also made connection with fellow interns, associate editors, and writers.
2. Sell yourself. Think about what you can tell someone in sixty seconds about who you are what you do that will help you land a job, advised Trudy Steinfeld, executive director of NYU’s Wasserman Center for Career Development.
3. Keep in touch. Lauren Berger, the Intern Queen, advised me to contact former internship bosses and contacts once a semester or if you’re out of college “once a season.”
4. Don’t be selfish. One of the golden rules of networking is not to contact people only when you need something. If your boss mentioned she has an appearance on the Today show in October—make a note of it and wish her good luck when it rolls around. If you help someone and form a good relationship they will be more willing to help you.
Andrea Teggart was an Intern Queen intern for Summer 2010 and is now an Intern Queen Campus Ambassador. 
