So Much Free Time!

By Marian Li, Toppel Peer Advisor

You’ll soon be saying sayonara to the balmy Miami weather and saying hello to actual winter wherever you call home. While you’re on break over the holidays, it’s easy to get into a lazy mode where you sit around doing nothing with your days, letting them mesh into one long continual nap fest where the days lose their names. While there is some value in taking a breather and relaxing, there is only so much rest necessary and, to be fair, you have other, more important things to do. Make the most of every moment; you’ll be happy you did once you’re back into the swing of second semester!

Update your resume – Regardless of where you are in your job search, use this spare time to create or update your resume. Did you learn a new skill in any of your classes this semester? Consider adding your relevant coursework and updating your grade point average as well. Did you work last semester? Include any work experience and add versatile details. Also add any volunteer work you did, or if you were an active member of any clubs. Your resume is the key to applying for internships and jobs, so you want to keep it up to date and looking its best.

Find a short-term internship – Put your time off to good use with a short-term internship. Inquire about internship opportunities during break at your career center and by searching for internships the same way you would during the semester. If you aren’t seeing anything available, try and make your own internship opportunity. Spruce up your resume, research nearby companies you’d like to work with, and send them a standout e-mail detailing what you’re looking for and what you can offer them. Explain why you want to intern at that specific company during your break and why you’d be a good fit. If neither of the above works, get a head start on your spring semester or summer internship search. Start researching companies and keeping track of internship opportunities.

Shadow an employee in your desired field – If you can’t intern at a company, find out if you can shadow an employee for a period of time. Shadowing an employee is a nice way to get a glimpse into the career – what a typical day entails, what’s required of employees, and what the atmosphere is like. If you are certain of what you want to do, this is a fantastic opportunity to see what skills you could work on now to improve your job search. You can learn specific computer programs or other skills you see in use, and figure out which personal attributes are needed for the job. On the other hand, if you’re still not sure what career path is right for you, shadowing workers in a few different industries could be your chance to see what various jobs are like and help you make a better decision.

Volunteer – The holiday season is all about helping those less fortunate, so it’s a great time to volunteer. Besides giving back to your community, making a difference in people’s lives, and forming friendships with fellow volunteers, it’s a great way to build your resume and to gain experience for scholarship applications. You might also consider doing something that could add specific, valuable experience to your resume.

Apply for scholarships – If there ever was a time to apply, it’s now! You don’t have to spend the entire break applying for scholarships, but even if you devote a few hours to your scholarship applications, it’ll make a world of difference.

Ultimately, your break is yours. Take the time to relax and catch your breath! But don’t forget to remain productive; it’ll make it easier to transition back in the springtime. Until then, happy holidays!

The Summer Internship Hunt

By Kelly Martin, Toppel Peer Advisor

It’s that time of year again: the humidity is creeping back into our weather, professors are starting to remind you to actually start that final project you’ve known about for the whole semester, and the “what am I doing this summer?!” panic sets in as you realize we are a little over a month away from the end of the year. So inevitably, we here at Toppel are hearing the same question over and over: how do I find a summer internship?

As college students we are constantly being told how important internships are to our future career, but often, heavy course loads and on campus involvement makes it difficult to balance an internship during the school year. Summer is the perfect time to dive head first into an internship and get some valuable experience. So, how do you find that elusive summer internship?

To start, check out HireACane.com. After logging in with your CaneID information, click on the “Jobs” tab and start searching. Use different keywords to narrow down your search and find exactly what you’re looking for.

Can’t find your perfect internship on HireACane? Here’s where you might have to do a bit more work. All of the internships and jobs I’ve ever gotten have come from just doing a Google search and seeing where that takes me. I follow tons of organizations in my field on Facebook and Twitter, and constantly keep up to date on what they’re doing to see if they’re places I’d be interested in working at, and sometimes they’ll even put job/internship postings on Facebook.  

So what if you find your dream company, but there’s nothing posted about internship openings? While many websites will have a “careers” or “internships” page, you might have to dig a little further with others to find the opportunity you’re looking for. You can send a letter of inquiry to a company expressing your interest in working for them and asking if they have anything available. They might turn you down but you really have nothing to lose!

Once you find the internship opportunities you want to apply for, come to Toppel for walk-in advising and we can help craft the perfect cover letters and resumes for those applications. Before you know it, you’ll have an awesome summer internship lined up!

Toppel Internship Program

By Maura Gergerich, Peer Advisor 

Found an internship for the summer? Congratulations! Good for you for taking that next step in advancing your career! Now, what should you do to prepare?  Try out the Toppel Internship Program (TIP).

What is TIP?

TIP is a program that provides students with a 1-credit transcript notation on your University of Miami transcripts.

Why Participate?

It’s nice to get recognition for the things you do. With TIP you get official recognition from the university. Yes, you can highlight your experience on your resume, but having it shown on your transcript gives it more emphasis when employers see it.  It may also be required by certain employers that you do receive credit for your internship. This happens mostly with unpaid internships, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be required if you are getting paid. TIP also helps to make sure that you and your employer are on the same page when it comes to your goals. You don’t want to waste a summer sitting at a desk making copies if you were expecting to get hands on experience. TIP can make sure you get what you are expecting from your internship.

How to qualify

For the fall or spring semesters you have to be enrolled as a full time student. If you have a summer internship you do not need to be taking summer courses. Also in order to be a part of TIP you need to secure your internship and contact the Toppel Career Center to ensure that internship experience meets Toppel requirements (company, content of internship, hours, etc) via email at toppel-internships@miami.edu.  Once you have an internship, the first step of TIP is to attend a mandatory orientation. This will explain in detail what exactly you do for TIP and can help answer and questions you might have.

 

Throughout your internship you will fill out a midway evaluation and at the very end you attend a reflection session. This is basically to keep you on track with the goals you have set out for yourself. It helps to make sure that you are getting the skills or knowledge or experience that you hoped to gain.

You can visit http://www.sa.miami.edu/toppel/mainsite/Students/Internships/ToppelInternshipProgram.aspx for more information and http://www.sa.miami.edu/toppel/mainsite/Students/Internships/TIPOrientationDates.aspx to see what dates are still available to attend the orientation. Best of luck interning!