On Thursday, October 5 I decided to attend one of STARR’s Career Workshops, the Internship Seminar. As it was required to attend an internship seminar before applying to an internship yourself, and I had personal interest in getting an internship, I was quite interested. Despite the seminar starting at 12:30, I managed to show up 5 minutes late. Luckily, the seminar hadn’t yet started and the presenter and internship coordinator, Michael Kalish, was very forgiving of me. We began the seminar by first defining what an internship is, which is “a temporary professional experience that provides a learning experience in your chosen career”. Michael Kalish then went on to explain the different types of internships. There are the paid internships, the unpaid ones, and the ones that offer you in school credit. For students that are currently not enrolled into any of the schools within Baruch, there are Zero-Credit internships.
While some of this info may seem basic, I learned of a lot of technicalities for the first time. For example, an internship cannot be considered paid unless you are offered at least $11.00 an hour, and you must be at least awarded credit in an internship or otherwise you are performing free labor which is illegal.
Kalish then took us on a tour through the STARR website, teaching us how to upload our information, and how to look for a job, and even search techniques that can help us find the exact internship we could be looking for. He mentioned the many resources that STARR provides to all students and encouraged us to come again should we need help on resumes or interviews or any sort of professional assistance. Unfortunately for me, as I am a current first term freshman, I don’t have enough credits to even go for a Zero-Credit internship, so a lot of what I learned is currently not applicable. However, I’m going to use this time to work as hard as I can so that when I finally am able to apply for an internship, I will be ready. I was really grateful for attending this workshop.