Staying Active During the Summer

By Ajay Rattu, Peer for Career

It’s getting warmer out which means that summer is right around the corner. Summer is the time for students to not worry about tests and just soak in some sun and relax. While enjoying the weather and relaxing is great, there is also plenty of time to to spruce up your resume as a student and gain experience in your field of interest. Three main activities that you can add to your summer are: landing an internship, securing a summer job, and volunteering your time to help the community.

Landing a summer internship, whether paid or unpaid, may be one of the best things a student can do to prepare for to finding a job after graduation. An internship not only provides more content for your resume, but more importantly, it also provides you with experience. Experience is always welcome, whether the opportunity was ultimately a good match for you or not, because something can always be learned through experience. The experience you obtain from an internship helps you, as a student, decide if your field of interest is a great fit for you. Through an internship, a student will learn and understand some of the daily responsibilities of their position of interest. Some of the questions students may have, such as, “What kind of things will I be doing on a daily basis?” and “Who do I interact with?” will be answered. Through that experience and a better understanding of the position and industry, the student is able to effectively gauge if they are the right fit for that particular line of work.

Another way a student can gain experience in the summer is through a summer job. Obtaining a summer job is a great way to increase your overall skills and also to create some type of income for yourself. The summer income can assist in a student’s semester expenses. Expenses like tuition, transportation, and food can be taken care of either partially or wholly with the summer income. Along with the summer job and income there is something students should learn to master, which is budgeting! By budgeting their expenses for the semester, students can focus more on their academics rather than stressing if they will need to find work mid-semester.

Although internships summer jobs are important, taking part in some type of volunteer work is also beneficial to a student. Volunteer work and community service is a great way to stay active during the summer while gaining interactive experience. Regardless of the type of assistance a student provides, the student will gain more knowledge either in the work itself or on how to interact with others.
Other suggestions for the summer that may be useful for students are to learn a new skill and to continue reading through the summer. By learning a new skill a student can increase their knowledge and also incorporate it to their resume. Hopefully as a student you are able to do at least one of these things to pave the way to a dream job after graduation. Enjoy your summer!

How To Be Productive During the Summer

By Jiaxin Karen Lu, Peer for Career, Starr Career Development Center

After tackling a series of final exams, here comes summer! College students love summer because they get three months of free time which they could use for vacation, socializing with friends, or catching up on any great movies and books that they have put off during the busy academic semester. Besides rewinding and relaxing your mind and body in summer, it is also important for us to realize that summer can be a productive period which we can utilize to prepare for the upcoming fall semester, such as by taking one or two summer classes, interning at a company you like, getting more well-rounded by reading news and books daily, and researching the companies you are likely to apply to in the fall.
If you have an internship in summer, make the most of it by being a diligent worker. In addition, writing internship diaries at the end of the day will aid in the learning process. In the internship diary, make sure you capture the main responsibility you have been assigned and make sure you know the steps of completing the important tasks. Make yourself available as much as possible at work, and let the supervisor know that you are accountable and responsible to them by regularly updating your current progress on any projects you do. Essentially, make repeated efforts to show that you are an asset to them by contributing to the department to the best of your ability.
Secondly, if you happen to be juggling a part time internship and summer classes, your time management and ability to prioritize will definitely come into play. Since classes are accelerated during the summer, you will have to be on top of the materials by constantly reviewing notes and reading textbooks. Taking summer classes is a great way to learn subjects of interest that you might otherwise not have time for in the fall or spring semester.
Thirdly, summer is also a great time to get to know any companies of interest in more depth. Browse the companies and stay on top of their current events such as addition or change of service lines, involvements in the community, or expectation for the new hires. In addition, to better prepare ourselves for the fall semester, we can hone our transferable skills by attending the workshops offered by SCDC, such as Small Talk, Mastering the Job interview-Basics, Researching Companies, etc.
It’s important for us to be aware that summer is a great time for us to continuously make progress on our academic and professional journey. Taking the time to relax while still being productive in internship, work, and class prepares us better for the fall semester and will definitely give us a leg up in a competitive and fast-paced environment.

Starrlights Summer Update

It has been a pleasure to share career tips, student stories, career fair reviews, and alumni interviews with not only the Baruch community but to the wider online audience using Starrlights.

In just about ten months we managed to launch this outlet to share the voices of Peers for Careers—student leaders at Baruch College helping students with their careers while embarking on the same journey themselves.

This summer, we hope you continue to re-visit our blog. Though we will be updating less frequently due to the summer season, please continue to tune in for some new posts.

We look forward to extending our readership and enhancing our content to help all student career seekers in the Fall of 2013.

Thank you for reading and we hope to hear from you soon. Feel free to leave a comment or suggestion in your feedback section below.

Sincerely,

Kamelia Kilawan, Peer for Career