truazn8948532

Is it possible for first years to do internships? I've heard that most freshmen do not have classes on Fridays-- with the possible exceptions of labs. I'm extremely interested in possible internships at the United Nations. Do most freshman have internships freshman year and is it possible to balance the Core/internship?

Shraf

you really need to stop talking about the core like its gonna take over your life cause its totally not....yea, its great that u write ur little why columbia blurb and ur all like yay, i love the core and stuff of that sort but its not what u'll be spending the majority of ur time doing at any point in ur columbia career.

as for fridays...its very easy to avoid friday labs

Most freshmen, as far as i know dont have interships mostly cause freshman usually cant DO anything useful in the real world....most freshmen even have trouble landing internships summer of their freshman year. I mean it depends on your background of course but i would suggest getting a work study job or something of the sort freshman year just to get your feet wet and know what its like to have some responsibility and interact wit people on a professional level. But again, it all depends on who u r and what ur background is.

The UN is great....i'm sure u'd get alot of good experience there...def something to shoot for

Columbia2002

Shraf is right. "The Core" is just a series of classes you have to take. If you go to a peer school of Columbia and major in something similar, you will take approximately the same NUMBER of classes to graduate. The Core is not inherently more work than being a college student at any other peer school.

This is pretty much true of 85% of the US population.

truazn8948532

lol you havent been on a while Columbia2002.

Columbia2002

I haven't posted much because there haven't been very many threads that are worth saying anything about.

nogardder

Then it's time to start a new thread and say something.

Skraylor

just to expand on what Shraf said, I dont know anyone with an internship. I know lots of people with work studies and lab jobs, but no internships per say. those are really summer things...

Denzera

and moreover, they're usually summer things after junior year, or after sophomore year if you're particularly precocious. The summer after my freshman year, I moved back home with my parents, and went to a local office park going door-to-door handing out resumes. One of them asked "hey, do you know ColdFusion?" to which I replied "Sure!" and went home and got a book on it. 3 days later I rocked the interview, but it was really seat-of-the-pants. I didn't know of anyone who managed to do anything really spectacular after freshman year.

More importantly, the adjustment to the Columbia workload is a huge problem for every freshman, no matter how mature or focused or disciplined you are. You're no longer a big fish in a small pond, it's a challenge, and until you go through a semester you won't have any idea how you're going to measure up to the challenge. Locking yourself into ironclad obligations like that is a recipe for disaster.

Do yourself a favor and wait at least one semester, see how your fridays go, see how much sleep you need to catch up on, etc. You'll notice you go out and have fun on thursday nights and would die if you had to get up for a real job at 9am. Or maybe you just need those hours to go to professors' office hours, or study with a friend, or do stuff for some activities. Don't pigeonhole yourself, at least not the first semester. Best advice I can give.

truazn8948532

Whoa hah yea i shud've realized that. Good advice, I'll focus on partayyying then

Columbia2002

I think Denzera might be making the concept of "internships" seem more unattainable than they are. As for internships being mainly something you do after junior year, I think his point more geared towards internships at major corporations that have specific "internship programs" where they hire multiple people on a set timetable. As an underclassman, there are plenty of summer opportunities available to you, but it's often jobs sort of come up out of nowhere exactly like Denzera found his job.

gulagorkestar

when i visited, the art history major who gave my tour spoke of his internship at the met during his freshman year like it was commonplace. for a freshman to have an internship at the met is... insane. perhaps his definition of "internship" is quite loose, but all the same, i doubt any other school could provide college students with the opportunity to be exposed to the workings of america's most extensive museum at such an early stage in the study of art history. so maybe if you're going to be an art history major...?

Skraylor

his "internship" was, most likely, unpaid. he was also probably doing the most b*tch jobs possible.

anecdotally, we've been bombarded with emails promoting these kinds of "internships" for the met, museum of natural history, etc recently...