Tags
#InternsofNU, internship, Northwestern, SESP, SIGP, SIGP 2018, summer 2018, summer internship, summer internship grant program
By Gabriella Rios
Gabby is a sophomore in SESP majoring in social policy.
Describe your summer internship.
Working for Student Enrichment Services at Northwestern included reviewing their website in order to find outdated information and broken links, compiling Wildcat Welcome care packages that include sheets and towels for incoming first year students, and preparing the free four-year Laptop Initiative for next year. I also helped clean and organize the SES office throughout the summer as well as helped the team migrate their files to Google Drive.
Explain how you learned about the opportunity. What resources were especially helpful in your internship search?
I learned about the internship through CareerCat (now Handshake). That was definitely my most helpful resource as I found all listings through there. However, before I found the SES listing, NCA was also great at giving me ideas on who to contact for possible internships and finding out what I should be looking for in an internship itself in order to best prepare me for my desired career.
What did you enjoy most about the experience?
The SES office is just an all-around amazing, relaxing environment, and the staff includes only three other women, so everyone is very close. The people I met have all been passionate about helping the students at NU and enhancing their experience, which, as a student, I admire very much.
What is the biggest takeaway from your internship?
The NU Student Affairs staff puts in a lot of work during the summer to prepare for the next school year, which just shows their dedication and concern for the well being of the students. There’s a lot of planning and behind-the-scenes work that needs to get done in order to have these programs and services available for students that we don’t think about very often.
What advice do you have for students pursuing internships that will help them be most successful?
Don’t get discouraged when you get rejected from an internship. It took me all of spring quarter to finally find the SES internship, not to mention it was the first internship that accepted me. I was rejected from several internships before SES took me in, but I’m thankful because I wouldn’t want to be working for anyone else.
As a 2018 Summer Internship Grant Program (SIGP) recipient, how did SIGP impact your summer?
My SIGP grant allowed me to pay off my entire rent for the summer so that I was able to focus on using my paycheck money from my other job for food and other necessities. It definitely lifted a huge weight off my shoulders because before SIGP, I was really stressing about how to pay it off.