Transcript:

Stephanie: Hi there. You're listening to Gear Up Season 2, where we bring you the Career Centers' own career advisers to talk about a variety of summer internship experiences. Today we're talking to Jen, who advises STEM jobs at the Career Center. Jen A.: Hi, I'm Jen Agor. I am one of the undergraduate career counselors here in the Career Center and I focus on STEM careers, energy and environment as well. Stephanie: So within your career area, you know, focusing specifically on summer internships. When do usually advise students to start preparing, looking for summer internships for an upcoming summer? Jen A.: Pretty much in any of the areas that I work with. It's all year long. So if I'm working with tech, it's goingto be a little bit closer to the fall for the big companies. But the rest of the time, for startups and other positions, it's all year. And then engineering, certainly same kind of thing. It's most people don't get started until the spring. So I would saythat's probably the best time to start looking for stuff that's going to be available in the summer. Stephanie: And so what are, I guess just a we're alike on the same page. What are some like examples of students who have done X internship that you've advised within engineering within STEM? Jen A.: Well, I had a student go to iRobot a few years ago, an ECE students. Well, we have students that go to like Boeing and aerospace companies. We have some students at GM and other automotive companies, G.E., some of the energy stuff. We have students who do Stanback fellowships or we also they go to all kinds of government positions. And then some of the other sciences, when you're talking research positions like that, they go to the NIH, they go to the CDC and all kinds of different places like that. Stephanie: So what are some resources that you usually tell students or places for them to start looking for these internships either online or here at the Career Center.Jen A.: Yeah. So with engineering, I would say that their biggest resource honestly is the North Carolina State Engineering Fair. Every fall it's two full days and both days have completely different employers and it's strictly geared towards engineering. So it's a really great resource. If students can get over there and they can take advantage of that in the spring it's one day, but it's still a huge amount of employers. So I think that's a really good opportunity. And then outside of CareerConnections and the career fair here, professional organizations, if you're involved with NSBE or SWE or SHPE or any of those organizations, they all have job boards and conferences, which are a great place to network. And then, you know, when my portfolio area is so broad, so I'm trying to answer for everything but things like biopharma, or biotech and pharma and things like that. North Carolina Biotech Center has a great job board that focuses on jobs around here. But there are all kinds of job boards like that for places all over the country. Stephanie: So, you know, let's say students find positions that they want. They go into the interview process. Are there any specific skills or qualities, you know, broadly speaking, for like STEM, for engineering that you think students should be looking to showcasewithin interviews that you think employers are looking for specifically? Is there more technical skills required, I assume?

Jen A.: Well, I think across all functions of what I do for a portfolio area, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, some data and quantitative skills are usually pretty helpful when you're doing research or trying to figure out projects, stuff like that, being able to track them and really focus on that data piece is important. And technical skills. You know, I see a lotof students who use a lot of Matlab, SolidWorks, any coding R and Strata. Again, if you're going into research and then Python, Java, all that kind of stuff, if you're in tech and honestly sometimes with

Kicking off with our first episode of Season 2, featuring Career Center Assistant Director Catherine Allen.

Stephanie: Hi there. You're listening to gear up Season 2, where we bring you the Duke Career Centers on career advisers to talk about a variety, of summer internship experiences. My name is Stephanie and today we're talking to Catherine, who advises computer science, jobs at the career center.

Catherin: Sure. My name's Catherine Allen. I'm an assistant director here at the Duke Career Center, where I primarily focus on computer science students at the moment. That is sort of my area of choice. But also I will meet with any student. So there's no umm there's no guidelines that I only have to meet with computer science students. If that makes sense.

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess for this, we'll focus mainly on computer science students. But if you have like other examples of students you've met with, then feel free to definitely add those in. So for computer science students I know there's like a wide range of internships, within that hat students are usually interested in. But generally speaking, how early would you say that your students start looking for summer opportunities?

Catherine: Sure. if you want to work in a big with a big five tech company? Say, you know, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook, you're going to want to start looking for internships early fall. And that really means you've got to have your personal materials ready by over the summer.

Stephanie: And that's true for every year. Like yeah.

Catherine: Oh, yeah

Stephanie: You know sophomores.

Catherine: Mostly because fall is the biggest recruiting season for larger tech companies. And if they get all their positions filled in the fall, they won't be back in the spring. And more, more and more years, we see them getting what they need in the fall. So you really have to be prepared to hit the ground running in August. With that said, though, there's plenty of students who have no interest in working with the a big five tech company and that landscape changes things a little bit. Fall is still a popular time, but you have more flexibility and you'll see more opportunities throughout the academic year. So if you're ending December and you haven't gotten any offers or you haven't seen the opportunity coming across it that like you really want, don't panic! Because there's going to be a ton of opportunities available for you again in the spring. In fact, you will see opportunities pop up even towards the end of the spring semester. So just be patient and know that it's a process. But if you're really going for a competitive internship, especially if it's your junior junior year fall is is the time.

Stephanie: So during the fall or even I guess at the end of summer, what kind of like resources are available to students for finding internships? Like where should they be looking for those opportunities?

Catherine: So it's going to be multi-faceted and you're going to want to pull in a lot of different resources to help. Really, I always recommend as a first solid stop is our CareerConnections umm platform. Everybody has an account. You just log in with your net ID, but there on the left hand side is going to be a jobs and internships section and there is a lot of different filters you can apply. But you know, start broad to see all the options listed there and then start to narrow down because obviously the more you narrow down, the fewer options you're going to see. But also go ahead and get your your search saved on that platform so that when you're in the throes of the fall semester, you got to do is log in and just see that saved search. You don't have to reapply everything all the time. Once you get familiar with that platform, I also recommend LinkedIn.com slash students. If you if you have a LinkedIn account and you log in and you search jobs there, that's great, too. But I would say start with Linkedin.com slash stud

Listen to Divya (2020) talk about her internship at Bain & Company this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Center's student produce podcast showcasing real students summer internship experiences? My name's Stephanie and today, we're talking to Divya who worked at Bain and Company this past summer.

Divya: Yeah, my name is Divya Juneja. I'm a senior majoring in economics and public policy.

Stephanie: And where did you work this past summer?

Divya: I was working at Bain and Company in the Boston office.

Stephanie: And how did you find out about that position? Did you go through the formal consulting recruitment?

Divya: Yeah. Yeah, I basically went through it like the way Duke sets it up. So they all have info sessions, in the beginning of fall semester and then sending resumes, cover letters, networking, all that good stuff and then getting whichever interviews and going through that process.

Stephanie: So I guess let's start there because I know it is such like a specific sort of process. Right. So I guess, how did you like start doing like case prep? Like what did that all look like for you in terms like preparation? Right.

Divya: So the summer before my junior year, I did a little bit in terms of just kind of like listening to what a case even sounds like because I had never done anything like that before. So I just needed to know what it sounds like and what are the different types of questions you could be asked and things like that. So that's kind of what I did with some are not that much I skimmed. Case in point a little bit. I know people say to read that I didn't find it that useful, but I think honestly, the best practice is just doing live cases with people. So then starting in the beginning of fall semester, I had a friend and she was also going through consulting, recruiting, core recruitment. And so we basically had like set dates throughout the week that we were like, okay, we are gonna meet up in case each other. And so it is like three or four times a week we would meet and like I would give her one and she would give me one. And that was like honestly the best practice in terms of just like practicing cases over and over again and also setting one's up with other people that have already been through it or people that, you know, that are working at these companies now and doing that maybe once every two weeks, just leave their practice with different types of like case givers. But yeah, I would say the best practice for me was just doing a ton of live practice cases.

Stephanie: And how did you find people who had like worked there. Like upperclassmen who had already like the company.

Divya: Yeah. So what worked really well for me was that I had like one or two friends that had done it this summer before. And so I was able to meet them. And then they would be like, oh, I have these friends that also did this and like meet up with them. Or there's also a lot of. Because this was my junior junior year. There was also seniors that had been through it before and we're going through it again and wanted to have practice with it. And then I think a lot of times, like at info sessions and stuff or just like networking wise, you meet other people that work at the companies now. And so reaching out to them and saying, hey, would you be down to run a practice case with me is also very helpful.

Stephanie: So then what was the actual like interview process like?

Divya: So for me and for Bain, at least, it was uh you get a few like behavioral questions. So like experience wise. Like, why do you want to do this? Things like that. And then it was mostly a case then. And so it was two two of those two 30 minute kind of cases for the first round and then the second round list to forty five minute cases and kind of similar setup of like behavioral questions in the beginning and then the case afterwards. The first ones were live or were in person, and that was at the career

Listen to Sydney (2022) talk about her work as a summer camp counselor this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Center's student produced podcast showcasing real students summer internship experiences. My name's Stephanie. And today, we're talking to Sydney, who worked as a camp counselor this past summer.

Sydney: My name is Sydney. I'm a sophomore. I'm studying psychology and planning to minor in education. And I want to eventually be at elementary school teacher and work in the education field.

Stephanie: Very cool. So what did you do this past summer?

Sydney: This summer, I was a camp counselor for Head First summer camps and I worked primarily with kids three and four in a traditional day camp setting. So we did arts and crafts activities and science and sports and music and swimming. And each week had a different educational theme and that was supposed to teach them a certain socio-emotional skill like resilience or optimism. And so my job was to keep them safe and go through the activities and make sure they had fun at the end of the week.

Stephanie: Cool, that's important. So how did you find out kind of about the camp, about the position? Where was it located? How do you know about it?

Sydney: It's right by my house. But I saw the job posting on Indeed.com and was just looking for.

Stephanie: I love that website.

Sydney: Yeah, amazing. I was looking for different summer camp opportunities. And then I had seen I think I must have been in high school, tutored some kids that maybe went to that camp or something because the the logo was very familiar looking to me. So I've been looked into the website a little bit more saw that it's a national camp that has a lot of different local branches of it. And then I think the one near my house opened four or five years ago. So it's relatively new in the grand scheme of things. And then just applied from there.

Stephanie: Yeah. And so had you had any experience doing that kind of thing before working with kids or going to camp or whatever?

Sydney: All through high school I worked with kids, there kind of like my favorite group to be around, my favorite type of job. And so I was a camp counselor in high school through my temple. Also with three and four year olds and I was a swim coach over the summer and have tutored elementary school kids. I had a lot of different experiences with kids, but this was my first time being head counselor. Primarily in charge as opposed to just kind of supporting and getting to play with them.

Stephanie: Be responsible for them that way.

Sydney: Disciplining them.

Stephanie: So what was like a normal day? I mean, I know you said it changed a lot. What time would you usually get there and how did the day kind of play out from there?

Sydney: We would get there at around seven forty-five and thenwe have a staff meeting of all the counselors at the camp at around eight to go through kind of the day, the schedule. Any notes that parents have left--good, or criticism that we needed to work on. And then we would start. We'd have, we'd have drop off which is a big ordeal. We had to get trained on it because they wanted everyone in and out as fast as possible. So we had to like get all the kids, bring them to the rooms, make sure they're entertained. And that took about twenty-five, thirty minutes. And then you we'd have an all campmeeting with the kids too where they would run the story line of the week. So if it was a penguin themed, they'd talk about penguins a little bit and introduce the story and then I would my group would go to swimming. Then you would have music then lunchtime, sports, arts and crafts, snack time, nap time, goodbye time.

Stephanie: That's a packed day. So what time did you end most days?

Sydney: Camp ended around two thirty, I want to say. After pickup was done, it was three. And then we'd have clean up and have our end of the day meeting where we talked about things that

Listen to Selena (2021) talk about her internship in graphic design at Pew Research Center this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Center's student produce a podcast showcasing real student summer internship experiences. My name's Stephanie. And today I'm talking to Selena, who worked in graphic design at Pew Research this summer.

Selena: Hi, I'm Selena. I'm a junior currently at Duke and I'm doing a interdepartmental major in visual media studies and computer science.

Stephanie: And where did you work this past summer?

Selena: I worked at Pew Research Center.

Stephanie: What were you doing specifically? What was your your role?

Selena: Yeah, I was the official title was Digital Design Intern. So basically I was working on their graphic design team, making all kinds of data visualizations and other types of visuals to go along with their articles and reports and be published online.

Stephanie: How did you find out about that position?

Selena: I don't remember exactly, but I think I was either looking on LinkedIn or Google or something and looking for a variety of different design related jobs. And it popped up. And I knew about the center previously because I because I'm in journalism and I do do some work for the Chronicle here. And at my high school newspaper, we used Pew Research Center's statistics a lot. And so when I saw that they had internships, I was really excited about that. And so I applied.

Stephanie: And you got it. That's cool. So what kind of stuff were you actually doing day to day? Were you working on projects mostly or...

Selena: I basically was functioning like a full time staff member. And depending on what was being published that day, I was either working on social media graphics or I was working on graphics to accompany a report or they have blog posts that are called for their facthink blog. And so those all need those, all need data visualization graphics as well as everything that gets published gets a featured image. So I was also looking through stock photos, getting images and that kind of thing for photos to go along with the reports. I would say I had a few larger projects, I worked on. I worked on I was on a trusted science report and that report was over 60 pages long. Most of them were actually done by the researchers because they had they have like a template that they used to make some of the simpler graphics, but then for the more complicated ones, they go to the design team. And so I was working on some of those and working on another report about machine learning. That was pretty interesting. I got to learn a lot from the researchers about what they were working on and that was really cool.

Stephanie: So do you kind of have to read the like the reports to know what graphics you need?

Selena: Yeah, I definitely had to read through the reports for context. I think a lot of times the researchers already kind of knew we want to show this or we want to show this particular trend in a graphic. But sometimes there were times, especially when I was looking for featured images or trying to create featured images, that was a time where I needed to read through and figure out what's the gist of the report or the post.

Stephanie: And so did you find it interesting? Was it cool getting to do that?

Selena: Yeah, it's definitely really cool. I think it was especially interesting for me in learning more about how the whole process works, because you see that the center publishes so much information and so much content. And it was really cool to get to see how that happens.

Stephanie: Was there anything that you kind of weren't expecting before you came to this position like. Did it kind of match the expectations of what you thought you would be doing day-to-day?

Selena: As far as expectations. Well, I expected that I was going to be working on graphics and doing that kind of thing. I thought I didn't know that I would be looking for photos

Listen to Noelle (2020) talk about her internship at Universal Studios this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Center's student produced podcasts showcasing real students summer internship experiences. My name's Stephanie and today we're talking to Noelle, who worked at Universal Studios this past summer.

Noelle: Hi, I'm Noelle. I'm a senior here. I am a Psych and VMS double major with a French minor potentially, if I can pull it off.

Stephanie: I'm a French minor, too.

Noelle: Aye!

Stephanie: Where did you work this summer?

Noelle: So this past summer, I worked at Universal Content Productions, which is the television studio in NBC Universal. So I was in Los Angeles on the Universal Studios lot. It was pretty cool.

Stephanie: That is cool. How did you find out about the position?

Noelle: So I did the Duke in L.A. program sophomore spring, which was where I got my first internship in L.A. and then just through really incredible Duke alumni I met there, I stayed for the summer and ended up working on the Universal lot and then loved it so much that I kept in touch with all the alum and kind of circled back and went back this past summer. So all thanks to Duke alum. We love them. But yeah, that's kind of how I found out about it. I reached out to Lisa Katz, who is co-president of NBC Entertainment, who I've formed a pretty good relationship with over the last year.

Stephanie: She is a Duke alum?

Noelle: She's a Duke alum.

Stephanie: That's cool.

Noelle: Yeah. So many Duke alum high up in the entertainment industry you never would know. But I've kept a pretty good relationship with her the last two, two and a half years. And I was like, hey, I'm really interested in doing this. She sent my resume to the right people and a few interviews later here we are.

Stephanie: So what exactly were you doing day-to-day, I know nothing about the entertainment industry.

Noelle: Umm most people don't. Day-to-day it was different for me because I was lucky that I got to work, I like alternated departments for days. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday I worked in Current Programing and then Tuesday, Thursday I worked in Development. So the difference is kind of Development is bringing in new projects, new IP, which is intellectual property. So like if a new book came out, I'd read that and like write coverage or like analyze the book and see like, would this be a good television show? Like, what demographic would it reach? How did I feel about it?

Stephanie: That's cool.

Noelle: Yeah, because I mean, the main demographic they're aiming for is basically people our age. So having somebody in the office that is 21 and like, would you watch this? And if I said no, then obviously they're going to take that into account. So that's kind of what I would do in Development. And then Current Programing was more kind of working with people who were on the shows. And I mean, I got to work with everybody who was writing like the last season, Mr. Robot and like Homecoming with Julia Roberts. It's very, very cool stuff.

Stephanie: So it's very production oriented?

Noelle: Yes, very much about production.

Stephanie: Did you get to meet the people on the shows?

Noelle: Some of them. Some people would just randomly walk in the office like Morgan Freeman came into the office one day and I was just sitting at my desk and I heard like, I feel like I hear God's voice. So I like walk into the lobby and Morgan Freeman's just standing there, he's like, hi, how are you? And I'm like, hello. Oh, hello.

Stephanie: You were like I'm the intern here.

Noelle: Which is just so obvious, honestly. But I loved it because I didn't really do a lot of like intern work is what I would call it. Like sometimes, like if they were really swamped, they'd have me like, go get the president's coffee or something. But it wasn't like all Excel spreadsheets and copy and paste this and clean the kitchen. It was very different.

Listen to Cameron (2020) talk about her internship as a staff reporter at a local newspaper this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Center's student produced podcast showcasing real student summer internship experiences. My name's Stephanie. And today we're talking to Cameron, who worked as a reporter this past summer at a local newspaper.

Cameron: My name is Cameron. I am a senior and a political science major with a policy journalism and media studies minor.

Stephanie: And where did you work this past summer?

Cameron: I worked at the Asheville Citizen Times, which is the only daily newspaper in Asheville, North Carolina. So it's in the western part of the state and it's a USA Today paper. So we're under the guise of Gwinnett, which is a massive newspaper company. They own a ton of newspapers across the country and they also own USA Today, which is a nationally syndicated version. And so I was just a staff reporter like anyone else. It wasn't really an internship. It was just more like I came on staff for three months. So I did breaking news reporting, education reporting, all sorts of all sorts of stuff.

Stephanie: And how did you find out about this position?

Cameron: I had a professor of mine in the PJMS department reach out to me and asked me if I wanted to do the internship. He knew that I had come to journalism kind of late and hadn't had much newsroom experience. And so he graciously offered me the position and connected me with the editor at the Citizen Times and from there it was history.

Stephanie: That's cool! What exactly were you doing day-to-day? Like if you just walk us through a normal day?

Cameron: Yeah, sure. So it's hard to walk anyone through a normal day in journalism because it's different every single day. Some days I'd work from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and some days I'd work half days. But basically a normal day I'd come into the office at like eight thirty and I'd get in there and we'd have a staff meeting. So our editor would call us all together and each of the reporters would keep the newsroom appraised of what they were working on. So we had one reporter working on a big corruption trial that was happening during the summer. There was a big murder trial that was happening that I helped out on. And so for the first few weeks, I was just kind of listening to what they were saying. And then I eventually started pitching my own ideas. And we didn't have an education reporter over the summer. So I did a lot of education reporting. So half about half way through the day, I would be I'd usually be gone doing some kind of interview or walking around trying to see if I could find pick up stories, talking to people, and then I'd come back to the office and write my stories with my editors right by my side so it was easy to just get their attention and have them look over my story. A little bit different if I was working the breaking news beat. I'd come to the office at 6:45 a.m. , 7:00 a.m and I would go through all of the arrest warrants and search warrants from the night before in the police office, and then I'd write up any of the interesting ones. So it really depended on the day. But that's how journalism is it's always different.

Stephanie: Yeah, which is nice. Honestly.

Cameron: It's so nice, it never it never was boring.

Stephanie: So how did you like kind of the culture of working in a newsroom of your coworkers? It seems like a very specific sort of company culture, so it totally is.

Cameron: It totally is. Yeah. I mean, it's very different from your typical corporate company culture. And even like working in an NGO, I think it's different. I've worked in a few NGOs. It's a very communal place. You are always talking. It's never quiet. I can't imagine a time when people aren't talking whether that means talking on the phone to a source or just talking to each other. It is so much fun. Everyone loves goofing off and having fun and talking abou

Internship Funding Program – Leigh Ann: A special episode to tell you about the Career Center’s Internship Funding Program. Listen to the Career Center’s own Leigh Ann Waring to talk about the program.

Stephanie: Hi there. You're listening to GEAR UP: the Duke Career Center's student-produced podcasts showcasing real student summer internship experiences. My name is Stephanie and today we have a special episode to tell you all about the Career Center's Internship Funding Program.

Leigh Ann: My name's Leigh Ann Waring and I'm an assistant director in the Career Center. I work with employers who are seeking students as interns, but I also oversee the Internship Funding Program for the office.

Stephanie: And what is the Internship Funding Program?

Leigh Ann: Great question. It is a stipend-based program where students can apply for funding to help offset costs that they might have if they're doing an unpaid or low-paying internship over the summer.

Stephanie: What does it include, really? Can just like students just get the money and can put it towards like, anything? Or logistically, how does it work?

Leigh Ann: Yeah. So it's for any type of expense that might be a new expense that they have; any type of living costs they might have as a result of doing an unpaid or low-paying internship. So things like their rent, transportation costs - and that could be like a one time plane ticket to and from their location of their internship, or it could also be like day-to-day commute, like a subway car or something along those lines. They can ask for coverage for their food, utilities, any special type of expenses that they might have, like a visa or any type of vaccinations that they may have to get as a result of doing their internship. So really, it's those living expenses that we cover.

Stephanie: And any student that's doing any sort of unpaid internship is eligible to apply?

Leigh Ann: So the program is for first-year students through first-semester seniors. So unfortunately, graduating seniors are not eligible, just because they won't be a student over the summer.

Stephanie: That's fair.

Leigh Ann: But yeah. So the students do need to be in good academic standing and good conduct standing. The unpaid or low-paying internship does have to be two hundred and forty hours for the summer, and there's some other requirements too that go along with that in terms of the type of supervision that they'll and intern that they'll receive. The program covers what we call unpaid, which is zero compensation, or low paying internships, which is kind of a little more of a loose definition. Typically we say $1,500 for the semester or the summer. However, if a student's going to a high cost of living area like New York City or Washington, D.C., we obviously take that in consideration. So if they're receiving more than $1,500 for their internship, but they still have a financial need, we would definitely take in consideration of that, too. And it's also open to supervised research projects.

Stephanie: Oh, okay. Oh, that's huge.

Leigh Ann: Yeah.

Stephanie: So what's the application process like, usually? Is it just fill out like one application and then receive a decision?

Leigh Ann: Yeah. So it is a competitive application. So students have to do three different steps. The first step is they have to view an online virtual information session, which is available off of our website. Or they could have attended an in-person session. Unfortunately at this point, the in-person sessions are finished for the semester. But all the same information's covered on the virtual session. So they have to review that and then fill out a Qualtrics survey that just shows that they reviewed it. The second step would be they have two things that they have to fill out that's on our web site. They're both Qualtrics surveys. One is their application, and the other is a employer information form that they have to provide to their employer to fil

Investment Banking (Barclays): Listen to Angela (2020) talk about her internship in investment banking at Barclays this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Center's student produce podcast showcasing real students summer internship experiences. My name's Stephanie and today, we're talking to Angela, who worked in investment banking at Barclays this past summer.

Angela: Hi, my name's Angela. I'm currently a senior at Duke, majoring in environmental science and minoring in finance. I'm originally from Seattle. Spent eight years, ten years growing up in Beijing, before coming to Duke. I wanted to be a scientist. When I first got to Duke to join a lab and everything and I decided that it wasn't the right career path for me. So I start looking at other opportunities around. So sophomore year, junior year, summer, I was at Barclays in the investment banking group specifically covering the media and communications industry and I will be going back full time.

Stephanie: Oh wow, congratulations. So let's focus, I guess, mainly on your this past summer, but if you want to bring in stuff from previous summers too that'd be great. So how did you find out about this position at Barclays? Like what was kind of the way that you ended up getting it?

Angela: Yeah, for sure. Investment banking recruiting and finance recruiting in general is very structured. So, you know, coming in as early as sophomore year and freshman year, that what positions will be open and which firms are hiring? So I learn about Barclays probably sophomore fall. Back then I was already recruiting for other bulge bracket banks in terms of sophomore internships. And there are some alumni who are working at Barclays who come down to campus, talk to people specifically in organizations that I am part of and I just kept in touch.

Stephanie: Awesome. So what was the interview process like?

Angela: Yeah, for sure. I went, I got my internship through a program actually called a Sophomore Springboard, which is designed specifically for diverse individuals and people of different backgrounds. And you have an earlier interview schedule and I got my offer pretty early in May of my sophomore year.

Stephanie: Wow!

Angela: So the interviews consist of a phone interview at the beginning where it was a Duke alum who actually interviewed me over the phone. It was casual conversation about my background, behavioral stuff, about why I'm interested in finance, why Barclays specifically. And then I had a super day in New York, which consisted of two, three interviews back to back, each one around 30 minutes long, a mixture of behavioral and technical interviews.

Stephanie: That's cool. So what exactly were you doing day-to-day at work? Describe a normal day.

Angela: For sure. Normal day you usually come in around 9:00 a.m. You answer a lot of emails from maybe the night before. You look at what, you have a good sense of where you might be doing for a day. It really varies a lot day-to-day, depending on the projects that you have. Usually when you have a project, it's a lot of work on PowerPoint, Excel. It's a lot of especially as the intern is usually a lot of turning over iterations of comments on PowerPoint. So The managing director would like scribble a bunch of comments and how the PowerPoint looks and then you go back and make all these changes or they would get they would give ideas and be like it would be great to have a slide on this. And then the Vice President, the Associate, your Analyst who you're working with will help you draft that what that slide looks like and you might be in charge of creating the initial draft. Still, it's a lot of PowerPoint iterations. It might also involve research and gathering data on different industries, different companies. It also involves sitting in a lot of meetings maybe with the senior management of the company, maybe just internally, maybe, maybe just your group and a few other groups withi

Listen to Monica (MEM 2020) talk about her internship experience at an energy consulting firm this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Centers student produced podcast showcasing real student summer internship experiences. My name is Stephanie, and today, we're talking to Monica about her internship at an energy consulting firm this past summer.

Monica: Hi, everyone. My name is Monica. I'm a second year in MEM Masters of Environmental Management student down at the Nicholas School of the Environment with a concentration of energy and environment. And here, I'd like to share a little bit of my summer experience at an energy consulting firm.

Stephanie: And where were you located, at this consulting firm?

Monica: So I was at the Northern Virginia area. So in the DMV area.

Stephanie: And what were you doing specifically or what position did you hold there?

Monica: So my position was called a commercial energy intern. So basically how it works was each intern was assigned to a specific energy specialized team. There was an intern that's in the electricity markets team. I was at the natural gas team. So that was a fun experience. And this exposure was really good to not only the energy sector, but from a more consulting perspective, which is pretty unique in my personal opinion.

Stephanie: Yeah. And how did you find out about this position? How did you become aware that it was available?

Monica: So I found out about this position during an event held by which is a joint event down at Duke. It's called Energy Week. So Energy Week, it's actually coming up. So the company that I was interning at was there at the career fair and they were also there at a coffee chat. So aside to a fair, there's this separate event where there are coffee chats happening. They occur for about 15 minutes, five students per room. And then that way you can actually have an intimate conversation with the company and really learn about what they do. So that is where I built momentum. I personally introduced myself. I expressed my interest. And that was after that was pretty much a snowball effect of, well, the cliché, quote unquote, networking. So that's how I found out about it.

Stephanie: And so what exactly were you doing sort of like day-to-day in the office?

Monica: So I think it will be easier if I just walk through my life from the beginning of my day to the end of my day. So I would arrive, let's say, at 9:00, 9:30 a.m. and then grab a coffee and then check my emails. So my team was pretty small, was cut like in the office. There was like four people and we also had offices outside the country. So we would, I would have a check in with my manager and see if there were any ad hoc tasks that I had to do, because the thing is being an intern. So this is a real, really unique internship experience because each intern had their own individual intern project where they had to work on for three months. And at the end of the internship, you present it in front of the whole floor, which is pretty much intimidating, but that was a really good learning experience. But as I said that you also have ad hoc tasks like tasks on the fly, like Monica, can you like write a quick summary of these policies. Can you do a quick Google search of what policies are what changes are happening in the markets? Like just see what's happening on the news, synthesize them into points. So that was like, I would say a 30 percent portion of my day-to-day tasks. And once that's done, like there is also flexibility and fluidity. Like if I could tell my manager, like I kind of want to focus on my intern project today. So he would understand and kind of like limit those ad hoc tasks. So, um, a day-to-day, like maybe if I had time and I was kind of bored of doing my project, I would say, do you have anything for me to work on? So he would give me these tasks of even just editing. Or maybe like can you check out this blog post draft and see