Today’s Question: I'm looking for ways to continue my career exploration this summer, other than getting a full-time internship. How should I go about doing this?Answered by Susannah Krenn, Tufts Career Services
Great question! I often meet with students who are concerned that full-time internships are the only worthwhile way to explore potential career paths in the summer. Untrue! There are plenty of other ways to add experience to your resume, begin building connections in fields that interest you, and most importantly, figure out how your skills/interests/values translate to the world of work. Here are 3 to consider:
Think about volunteering with an organization that interests you
Much like an internship can help you test out different kinds of work, volunteering is a great way to gain experience in an area that interests you. Use the Idealist.org Volunteer Search to look for opportunities in your area or check out the Craigslist Community section for volunteer postings.
Request informational interviews
What if I told you that there are 8,800 people who want to share career advice with you? It's true! I'm not even counting the people in your personal network (friends, family, coaches, professors, etc.) I'm talking about the Tufts alumni who volunteer to be members of the Tufts Career Network, and the summer is a great time to ask them for informational interviews. What are informational interviews? Just short conversations with people who can help you learn more about career paths you think you might like. Read more about informational interviewing here, and for a personal testimonial about the process, read Kathy's post about networking.
Conduct research using Career Services web resources
We have a ton of great information on our website, and the summer is a perfect time to check it out. Look at this web resources page for special tools we offer for Tufts students. I recommend the Vault Online Library for PDF guides that give you a sense of the day-to-day work involved in particular career fields. (We tell you all about the Vault in another of our spring blog posts.)
Have fun learning about careers this summer!
