How Co-Curriculars Helped Me Land a Summer Internship!
So you just graduated high school and are off to college in the fall. Paying for college is going to be tough but you can take care of a good chunk of the cost with all of those scholarships you earned. However, there is one more thing that you keep worrying about: you have never had a job before and have absolutely no work experience beyond the chores you had to do at home. You don’t have the time for a full-time job but you still want the experience so why not try to get a summer internship? Contrary to what you may have heard, you don’t have to be in college to land a summer internship.
Unlike getting a full time job at your neighborhood fast-food joint, internships tend to give you a better idea of what an actual job in your field will be like. While you can apply for an internship with a regular resume, maybe you should do something about the giant blank space under “prior work experience.” Let me introduce you to the co-curricular transcript (CCT).
A CCT is similar to a resume but instead of highlighting prior work experience, it focuses on your involvement in school-related activities such as athletics, science-fairs and service clubs. In other words, it fills up the empty space under work experience with other experiences you have. For example, lets say I have never had a job before but I did spend two weeks on staff at a leadership camp. On a resume this would fall by the wayside but on a CCT, it would be more prominent.
So now that you have all of your various experience laid out for your potential employers to see, all you have to do now is send it in to the companies you would like to intern at! Just remember, some internships are paid but a lot are not. The real reason to get an internship is to get experience and test the waters of your field. Landing a summer internship with pay is just icing on the cake. Give it your best effort and you may be invited to work there part-time or even full-time!
Photo Credit: Juhan Sonin | cc