Tara Huggins ’14 may be a communication concentrator, but unlike many of that department’s students, her career goals have little to do with public relations, news media or communication research. Rather, Huggins wishes to pursue a career in full-service event planning, and she is completing a summer internship at Occasions Catering in Denver, Colo., to supplement her Hamilton communication background with real world experience.

Stephen LaRochelle’s ’14 summer internship perfectly exemplifies the adage “do what you love and the money will follow.” LaRochelle, a history major and a first baseman on the Hamilton varsity baseball team, is working as a sports journalism intern with the Danbury Westerners of the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL).

Although she’s only a rising junior, Lauren Lanzotti ’14 already has a clear idea of where her academic path will take her. After studying lighting design at Hamilton for the past two years, she is exploring four possible career option, one through an internship this summer at Limelight Productions.

Catherine Gold ’14 took advantage of the Career Center’s HamiltonExplore career shadowing program in January by spending a day with Meg Harrison ’91, patient services manager at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in New York City. Now, six months later Gold is a Levitt Public Service Intern there, thanks in large part to the connection she made through HamiltonExplore.

In the current job market, summer internships are becoming harder and harder to come by, but this did not stop Bonnie Wertheim ’14 from securing two internships this summer in the competitive field of entertainment media. Wertheim is spending the summer splitting her time between VICE Media, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Universal Republic Records, in New York City.

You’ve spent countless hours scouring the Internet for the perfect internship. You’ve written dozens of cover letters, networked, and interviewed and now, finally, you’ve applied to your dream internship. The only problem is that it’s unpaid, and you can’t afford to work for three months without some income. Is this the end of the road? Hardly!

Two months into my sophomore fall, I wasn’t particularly concerned with finding an internship for the next summer. I checked HamNet from time to time, but relevant jobs were not yet surfacing for me no matter what website I checked. I learned quickly that the search for any job or internship begins with more than finding listings at which to throw my resume and cover letter.

Read how Lauren Howe's HamiltonExplore experience confirmed herdesire to go into nonprofit and/or social justice related work after undergraduate or graduate school.  We have opened this year's program to juniors. Visit the Career Center's HamiltonExplore page for application information.

Grace Lee '13 took full advantage of HamiltonExplore, career shadowing program is designed to assist sophomore students with career exploration and decision making by offering the opportunity to "shadow" (observe) a Hamilton alumnus/a or parent in the workplace for a day or part of a day. She "shadowed" Elizabeth DeBraggio '07 at the Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP) and learned if this was a good career fit.