Securing an Internship a Reflection

#collegetips

My life has been a great blessing from the first time I got the news that my family and I will be immigrating to the United States to the acceptance letter into the University of Florida. I still look back at those moments as giant milestones in my life.

People often forget where they came from because they've become too comfortable with their lives. This mentality in my opinion is hugely flawed. If I ever become too comfortable with my life, then that is when I stop growing. I wish more people would spend the time to truly reflect and remind themselves how they got to the present moment.

This is my post about securing my internship with Shimmick Construction and the process I went through to get there. I first went to my first career fair in freshman year with a resume filled with high school accomplishments. Because it was my first time going to the career fair, I lacked the knowledge and strategy to land my first internship. I made the mistake of not researching the companies ahead of time. Nor did I build a solid elevator pitch when talking to recruiters. All these rookie mistakes led to me never landing a legitimate interview. Sophomore year, I stepped up my game. I researched the companies beforehand and practiced my elevator pitch. I made sure there were no more mistakes on my part. So, I went to the career fair in the Spring Semester of 2019. The companies I was particularly interest in were Lipman Tomatoes Farm, PepsiCo and ROSS. I really wanted to land these internships in the sales or supply chain department because I want to use this knowledge in my fish farm one day.

Although I landed interviews with these companies, I never pass the final round to be selected as an intern for these companies. This fact crushed my mentality. I was discouraged because I felt inadequate. Eventually, I got over the fact that I needed to use those rejections as reasons to rebound. So in the summer, I got a job as a sales associate at Forever 21 in Naples, FL. I only worked part-time for a total of 1 and half month because my parents and I were traveling back to Vietnam to see the fam that summer.

Finally junior year rolls around and I am desperate for an internship since it is a requirement for graduation in the college of business. I went to career fair once more, this time I pursued Hormel, Kellogg, and PepsiCo. I've successfully got an offer with Hormel but the internship would be in Michigan which is not my ideal location. Then out of all the extraordinary things that have occurred in my life, this has gotten to be one of the best. My uncle told me to apply for Shimmick Construction which offers internships in California. Their interns would be in the finance department. My uncle has a nephew in the company that could put good words in for me. Therefore, I applied and within a few weeks, I got the offer! I used to live in California before, and I actually love it there. So, it was a no brainer for me to choose Shimmick Construction over Hormel.

My internship will start on May 11 and ends on August 10. I will be in the finance department overseeing multimillion dollars projects in the state of California. Hopefully, I will be an expert in Excel by the end of this internship. They will be paying me $1050 per week with a $2000 payment to help with rent.

Now looking back at my internship search and the process I went through, I got to say it was one hell of a journey. However, I am glad to have gone through it. Hope you learn from my mistakes and be successful in landing your own internship.