I am officially employed upon graduation from Tufts in a few months: the search for my first after college job has come to end and now my search for a place to live begins (I’m hoping this will be much less time consuming). I’m sure most of you are not thinking about your first job upon graduation, but your first internship search is probably not too far off. The internship and job search can be difficult, especially when juggling classes, extracurricular and a social life at the same time. Tufts provides great support for the process and goes great lengths to ensure that you’ll succeed in the working world, if you’re willing to put in the time.
My first internship was in an economics and budgeting office in the Pentagon. It was quite an experience to work for the government agency with the largest discretionary budget, spending hours getting my security clearance, did in fact, pay off. So how did I land this internship at the Department of Defense? Walking to Carmichael dining hall, I saw a poster for Tisch Summer Fellows, an internship and career development fellowship run out of Tisch College. I went to the info session and knew immediately this program would be a great fit for me—engaging with active citizenship, working with government economists, and exploring several careers at networking and panel events all sounded appealing. I wound up applying to this fellowship, an outdoor leadership position leading groups of teenagers in week long trips, and an internship at Tufts campus in Tallories, France. I wound up being offered the position at the Pentagon and welcomed the opportunity with open arms. Tisch College is a great resource for finding summer internships—they offer programs in NYC, DC, and Boston and will also work with students individually to find internships in community development and civics.
After another year at Tufts, I became even more interested in economics and applied for summer internships in both the private and public sectors for the summer after my junior year. This time I applied to over twenty organizations from small think tanks to multinational insurance companies. I worked with a career counselor in the Tufts Career Center as I went through the application process. I landed a few interviews, but no offers, and was feeling pretty discouraged. Working with the my career counselor helped me stay motivated and showed me all the benefits of conducting such an extensive internship search. I found out about companies I had never heard of and discovered more and more ways I could put my economics degree to use. I wound up interning at the Big Data Initiative (which you can read more about here).
I went into my senior year at Tufts thinking I would spend my first year after graduation teaching English abroad. After thinking about this some more, I decided that teaching English would not be right for me at the moment. I began my job search towards the beginning of my last semester at Tufts, and felt very prepared for the process. I had contacts at companies across the country from attending networking events and conferences throughout my four years. I had supervisors I had worked with who were willing to write me recommendations. I had two internship searches behind me and a strong relationship with my career counselor, who knew what sorts of positions I was interested in. And I had a much better sense of what I wanted to do than in the past. I focused my search on economic research jobs in NYC, DC, Philly, and Boston. After several interviews, flights to and from Philly, and much time spent writing cover letters and preparing for interviews, my hard work paid off.
I did not write this post to spark nervousness about job and internship searchers, rather to give a glimpse into my own experience with these searches and how Tufts makes the process doable. There’s such a strong support network on campus and over the world, with alumni more than willing to help a fellow Jumbo out. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to connect with current students in my future job and explain the journey that led to this destination.