Insightful Internship by Jasmine Lee

This week has been incredibly insightful with my internship. Since the office is in Bloomington, I don’t get face-to-face contact with my employer or others in the office as much as I’d like during the school semester, but this week, I got two chances to do so!

My employer came to SCSU to do some interviews for advisors earlier in the week. I got the opportunity to sit in on a couple and just observe and then ask a few questions myself. He does structured interviews, and it was really exciting being able to see what each question is meant to get out of the candidates and what they look for.  After a couple interviews of just observing, I got to role play asking the questions and then got a chance to ask a couple in the next interview. I felt pretty powerful!

Today, I went into the office to meet the advising interns and see what they were up to in their classroom work. I have to say it was really nice being around people my own age, and it was kind of a fun change of pace seeing what they were learning about financial advising. I definitely don’t know enough about the industry since it is so complex, but I’m trying!

I have to share some advice that one of the advisors shared with us today because I’ve seen and heard about this much too often. He asked us, “Why do you go to college?” Well, the answer is pretty obvious – to get ready for a career, right? Well when an opportunity presents itself to further your career, take it, no matter what is getting in your way.  Professors probably won’t like me saying this, but classes and exams can wait. The main point of going to college is getting a career, so take every opportunity you get to move towards that goal.

Employers want to see motivated and enthusiastic recruits who really want to work for their company and do well. Being persistent and confidant is generally a good way to get in, but you need to utilize resources to get those initial contacts and build relationships with employers. I’m not getting paid to say this, but Career Services is an excellent place to get started. So use it!