Imogen Rawlings-Green
@irawlingcourant
As the dust settles for college applications and a new deadline arrives, many seniors are starting to think about their senior internships. Last year, seniors were unable to attend internships and instead made senior projects, which included learning a new instrument, making baking tutorials, and even starting a podcast about dinosaurs. This year, seniors are fortunate enough to embark on in-person or virtual internships and get a glimpse of their future careers or expand upon a hobby.
As of December 18th, seniors should have applied to the internship program and picked through the categories of their career interests. Senior Internship Director Heather Bianco said that, with registration almost closed, there are more steps that seniors have to take to gain a successful internship. “After registration is closed on December 19th, students can go back into the portal and begin to look at different internships we offer,” Ms. Bianco said. “We ask students to pick 15 internships and rank them in their preferred order. They have from December 19th through mid-February to make any changes.”
As with most things this year, quite a few of the internship hosts are hesitant to make certain that they will be accepting seniors this year. “With Covid-19 this year, a lot of hosts are waiting until January or February to let us know, so seniors need to keep that in mind,” Ms. Bianco said. She recommended that seniors frequently check their emails, as Ms. Bianco will be sending out email blasts to let students know of any changes to their internships.
Many seniors, such as Elena Unger, are altering their internship expectations and hoping to find an in-person opportunity. “Formerly I imagined myself interning for the New Canaan Advertiser, or maybe familiarizing myself with a local marketing company, but now I am just hoping to find anything that doesn’t require Zoom,” Elena said. “Regardless of where I end up, I am looking forward to having the chance to improve my interpersonal communication, explore a new interest, and have some fun!”
Similarly, senior Thomas Bausman has also changed previous internship plans because of COVID-19. “I have a family friend who is a chief surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) and I asked him for an internship there, but he couldn’t because of Covid-19,” he said. “Now I am planning on asking my physical therapist in town to see if there is an internship spot there.”
While it is certainly challenging to find an internship opportunity in the medical field this year due to Covid-19 restrictions, other internship opportunities such as computer science are offered on a variety of online platforms. Senior Neya Krishnan said that she is looking towards an internship that involves computer science and also hopes to spend more time on creative writing. “I’ve taken three years of computer science electives at the school and I love the subject so I was hoping to get some on-the-job programming experience,” she said. “I am hoping to either double major in computer science and creative writing or minor in creative writing in college, so this internship is a great opportunity to explore these areas.”
Many students are hoping to get a better understanding of what they are looking towards in their careers. Senior Breanne Shipman is interested in interning at a local elementary school. “Through this internship, I hope to get a better understanding of how teachers create lesson plans and day-to-day things an elementary school teacher would do,” she said. “Similar to my summer job as a sailing instructor for kids, I am hoping to see how every kid is slightly different in picking up learning tactics and their behaviors during my internship.”
No matter what kind of internship seniors are applying for, Ms. Bianco recommends that students put a variety of interests on their internship lists. “I think it’s important to have a diverse list. When we sit down with kids for their fifteen-minute interview I can tell you that about 40% of the time kids will leave and adjust their list,” she said. “Many students will find they have the same type of thing on their list and realize maybe they do or don’t want to work with kids or sit at a computer all day.”
