Whether you’re graduating and looking for a full-time position (congrats!) or looking for a summer internship, the time has arrived to begin the search. The benefits of internships are extensive. Some majors or programs require them, and even if they aren’t required, they’re a great way to gain experience, make contacts in your field, get a feel for different company cultures, and (maybe) earn some money. As for full-time positions, the answer is obvious. You’ve spent the last four(ish) years of your life earning this degree, and now you get to go out into the real world and put the degree to use!
So, how do you find these internships and job opportunities? There are two main ways:
In Person
The Career Center offers many events through the semester to facilitate connections between employers and students. You can check out all our coming events on our calendar, but I’ll highlight three types here:
On The Roads: These require you to sign up, but it’s definitely worth it. The Career Center takes you by bus to the company where you get to talk with employees and get a feel for the culture and workplace.
UMBC Connects: These events are hosted on campus, no RSVP required. Show up and chat one on one with company representatives.
Career Corner: The least formal of the three options. Stop by the table set up in the Commons and chat for a few minutes with recruiters.
If employer recruiters are feeling a little too intimidating for you at the moment, I’d highly suggest coming in and talking with the Career Center Internship and Employment team. You can make a 30 minute appointment through UMBCworks, and they’ll walk you through the process. When I was a freshman, I came into the Career Center with no idea where to begin or what to do. They helped me land the most amazing summer position. Also consider signing up for the Intern Success Conference on November 7th! There’ll be a panel, keynote speaker, and information sessions all to help you land that perfect internship.
Online
Over the last few years, online networking and job search tools have exploded in popularity. Check out a few of our favorites:
UMBCworks: Just for UMBC students and alumni! Find all types of jobs and on-campus interviews here.
Links by Major: These give you websites and resources exclusive to your major!
Vault: Find companies by types of programs, locations, and majors hired. Then check out reviews from current and past employees.
Linkedin: The classic. There's a reason everyone’s on Linkedin. One of the best ways to network online. Check out our guide here.
If you’re lacking inspiration or not sure what exactly you’d do at an internship, take a look at the Career Center’s Intern of the Week series. Once a week, we interview UMBC students who completed internships about their favorite parts of the job.
Next week, we’ll go over more tools the Career Center has to help you reach your career goals. Over the next few days, look out for events connecting you to Northrop Grumman, T. Rowe Price, and the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Also, be sure to sign up and attend our Diversity Recruitment event! You’ll get to network with recruiters and eat a free dinner. Good luck with your applications, and I’ll see you next week!
Spring 2019 registration is right around the corner, and the process starts with connecting with your academic advisor.
Your advisor is a vital member of your support team at UMBC. Often your advisor is a professor in your major department, but could also be a professional (full-time) advisor. If you have any doubt at all about WHO your advisor is, below is a link to the department contacts for all majors. The person listed as “advising coordinator” or “advising contact” can help you find out who your advisor is, or assign you an advisor.
When should I meet with my advisor?
We encourage you to schedule an appointment with your advisor as early as possible. In order to register for Spring 2019 classes, your advisor must first provide you with registration clearance (permission). This happens during your appointment when you discuss your semester progress and develop a plan for the next semester.
What should I do to prepare?
Review your degree audit and/or transfer credit report in advance and go with a list of topics/questions to cover.
If you need help planning your coursework, our Academic Pathways provide a suggested four-year pathway for completing your degree program.
The schedule of classes will be available on Monday, October 22nd. Please review the courses that are offered and be prepared to bring a list of courses that you are interested in when you meet with you advisor.
Be ready to discuss any outstanding items or questions you might have from previous advising meetings. We also recommend that you take notes; never go to an advising session without the capacity to take notes, whether with pen and paper or on laptop.
When can I register?
Spring 2019 registration begins Tuesday, October 30th. Your exact registration date depends on the total amount of credits earned. Please note that the dates reflect the earliest time you are eligible to register for courses. You can still register for courses after your designated date and time. Information regarding your exact registration time will be available in early October.
Have questions?
See everything you need to get in your personalized – Guide to Registration – which can be found in your myUMBC.
Share your concerns in the comments section below or contact the Office of Academic & Pre-Professional Advising at arc@umbc.edu.
If you have a quick question, send us a DM on Instragram @umbc_advising!
Remember
While one faculty member or professional advisor provides registration clearance for you each semester, we encourage you to come out and meet other members of our advising community to discuss graduate school, internships and career options.
Applications are due November 4th for students who would like to attend the first Summit “Student Experience” event. Selected students will receive a package valued at $800, including registration fees, lodging, and a travel stipend. Students will engage in 2-full days of student-focused content and then join the rest of the field for the regularly scheduled 2019 Summit at Indiana University. Students can learn more and apply for this opportunity here.
Name:Zack DeThomasis
Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Greenfield Partners, Inc.
Position Title:Social Media Operations Coordinator
Major(s)/Minor(s):Media and Communications Studies
Work Term:Summer 2018
Tell us about your internship, co-op, or research opportunity, including your day-to-day responsibilities.
I worked for a small, private IT staffing and recruiting company called Greenfield Partners, Inc located in Irvine, California.. My responsibilities included establishing the social media pages, connecting the content through all of the platforms to ensure that there was transparency across all pages. Additionally, I was able to learn the day-to-day operations of a small business and what it takes to establish and maintain it. I was able to sit in on phone calls and interviews between employers and potential candidates.
Describe the process of obtaining your position. When did you hear of the position and submit your application?
My mentor was a personal connection and because he works within the staffing industry, he has many connections to various companies. Over the Winter break into the Spring semester of this past year is when I started looking and applying to different internship positions for this Summer. It wasn't until midway through the Spring semester that everything was then set. I had asked him if he had any knowledge of any companies looking to hire interns in any marketing positions. Upon this, he then countered and asked me if I would like to work with him to get his company's social media pages started and functioning.
What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization?
It allowed me to be creative and rely on my own knowledge of social media. Additionally, I did a lot of research to see how other companies started and use their social media pages so that I could create something similar for Greenfield Partners, Inc. it was also very challenging because Greenfield isn't a company that produces material goods, but rather it is a service that companies can use to come into contact with potential job candidates. The group at Greenfield really acts as more of the "in-between" for companies to candidates. Being a former athlete at UMBC, I have really only been familiar to things that were sports related. This internship was the first thing that I had done that wasn't sports related so I enjoyed that it was something new to me and maybe out of my comfort zone.
How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?
I was able to help out a personal connection with getting his business established on social media fronts. Social Media is a prominent platform for companies in our current time, so to help someone out meant a lot.
What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?
There is always a market for hiring interns. Unfortunately, that's what makes getting an internship position so competitive. Before I got my internship at Greenfield Partners, I had applied to 4 different companies for their internship positions and had gotten denied to all 4 of them. It really did force me to look back at my network and connections and then take it upon myself to reach out. Additionally, teamwork is KEY. Being able to communicate with your coworkers on ideas is a necessity. Like I said, there is always a market for interns and make sure to check base with any of your personal connections.
Like the Career Center on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
#UMBCintern
Want to be the next Intern of the Week? Make sure to fill out this form and stay tuned. New interns are announced every Friday!
]]>It’s Official…
The U.S. Department of Education has published the official three-year institutional cohort default rates for the Federal Stafford Direct Student Loan Program for Fiscal Year 2015. While the national cohort default rateis 10.8 percent, UMBC's cohort default rate is 4.0.
A cohort default rate is the percentage of a school's federal student loan borrowers who enter repayment within the cohort fiscal year and default (nonpayment) within the three years after repayment begins (the cohort default period).
Why is this important? UMBC's consistently low default rate speaks, among many things to the employability of UMBC graduates. Most UMBC graduates are able to secure employment or enroll in graduate school after earning their bachelor's degrees.
Plan ahead for repaying your loans. To learn more about loan repayment plans and options, visit ourFinancial Aid and Scholarships website.
Your FinancialSmarts Team!
Precise Software Solutions is a fast-growing small business providing healthcare information technology services and resources to help the FDA improve their internal applications seeks experienced, motivated Cheminformatics Developer/ Technical SME with knowledge of toxicology and cheminformatics.
The successful candidate will be a strong analytical problem solver (client satisfaction focused) responsible for review and assessment of requirements, documentation and gaps against a product prior to its production release.
The successful candidate will have experience in cheminformatics and have the ability to performdata analysis, review and comparisons across several databases containing chemical data to provide recommendations on how best to merge the data/ data structures based on like chemical structures, chemical notation, compounds and nomenclature.
Duties and responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:
Hopefully, you all had a good time at the Career Fair last Wednesday. At this point, the companies you talked to are beginning to look over resumes and decide who they want to advance to the next round in the hiring process, also known as interviews!
Before we dive into the strategies you can use to impress during the interview, there are a few basics that need to be covered first. Dress professionally. Wear at least business casual, but you might want to step it up a notch to business attire. Bring an extra copy of your resume, a pen and paper, and a bottle of water. Map out your drive (if you have to drive) the day before and account for traffic when deciding when you should leave. If your interview is on campus, make sure you know the building and room number.
During the interview, try and maintain an air of professionalism while developing a relationship with the interviewer. It's a tough line to walk, but resources linked below can help you practice and find that balance. Think of the type of interview as well, phone interviews and technical interviews are very different. When answering a question, keeping the acronym S.T.A.R. in mind is incredibly helpful. Stories that describe the Situation you were in, the Task you had to complete, the Action you took and the Result of that action communicate efficiently and clearly to the interviewer the message you are trying to get across.
At the end of the interview, you’ll get the chance to ask the interviewer questions about the company. I don’t know about you, but when asked to ask questions, every single question I’ve ever had immediately vacates my brain and I can’t figure out anything to say. So it's good to go in with a plan. Do research on the company beforehand and develop a list of questions to ask. They can be industry-specific or more general, like “How does the area I would be working in fit into the overall organizational structure?”. Finally, after the interview, send a thank you note to follow up. Thank the interviewer for their time and the opportunity, and reiterate how you hope to hear from them soon.
So, we’ve gone over everything you need to do, but how can the Career Center help you? We offer mock (practice) interview appointments you can schedule through UMBCworks. You’ll come in and interview with a career specialist, then they’ll give you feedback on your performance. We also offer a new online service called Big Interview. You can search through a database of questions, record yourself answering them, and send them to the Career Center for review. To get questions reviewed, simply send the recording through Big Interview to our email: interviews@umbc.edu.
Interviewing can be a scary thing, but with the tips laid out above, hopefully it’s a little less so. Make sure to keep an eye out for more employer events coming to campus soon, we always have fun things going on. See you next week, where we’ll talk about finding internships and full- time positions using more Career Center tools.
Name:Shannon Clancy
Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Ford Motor Company
Position Title: Product Development Intern
Major(s)/Minor(s): Mechanical Engineering
Work Term:Summer 2018
Tell us about your internship, co-op, or research opportunity, including your day-to-day responsibilities.
I work as an intern in a branch of Product Development called Body Exterior. Specifically, I am on a team who works with water management and water leak issues on vehicles. I have participated in multiple tests on vehicles and my project focuses on hole sealing process to prevent water from entering the car. I also have been working on my technical writing on the day to day by drafting design rules on various issues.
Describe the process of obtaining your position. When did you hear of the position and submit your application?
I actually obtained this internship in a very unusual way from the typical apply, interview, hire process. Ford came to UMBC for the first time in 10 or so years in Fall 2016. At that time, I was a sophomore and was very interested in working on cars or possibly going into automotive engineering. The Career Center was holding a networking event for Ford where two representatives who went to school in MD, one from UMD and the other from UMBC to try to recruit interns and full-time employees. I went to the event and made a contact, John Reed from UMBC, who is actually now my manager. I applied for their summer 2017 internship, but due to unforeseen circumstances, my interview was right after their hiring process was underway and most interns had been hired by October 2017. I ended up not being hired by Ford for that summer. However, I decided that I was still invested and determined to have another opportunity with Ford. I kept in contact with John Reed through email and talked with him when he came for the Spring 2017 career fair. Between his first visit in Fall 2016 until I reapplied Fall 2017, we sent around 30 emails back and forth. He remembered my name and my experiences and would always want to know how I was doing in school and in my extracurriculars. Through keeping contact, John was able to find me a spot on his Body Exterior team and it was a moment I'll never forget as a first step in my career.
What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization?
I have enjoyed meeting the people I have so far. Ford is a huge company, and everyday I’m always meeting new people from such diverse backgrounds, even more so than UMBC. Everyone has a different story, and it’s something that has always intrigued me about others. I’ve gotten so much support, and learned more than I could have imagined, especially thankful for my supervisor and everything she has done for me. It’s also pretty cool to see and work on vehicles that come out in the next 1-3 years.
How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?
I believe I have made an impact and will continue to make an impact after my internship is over through my summer project. Even though the end product will be a small part to a large process Ford has in designing, manufacturing, and launching their vehicles, it’ll help save the company a lot of time and money through preventative measures and checks.
What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?
Two things: One, understand everything happens for a reason and just keep trying. When I first didn’t get the internship with Ford, I was devastated. I knew since high school that I had an interest in the automotive industry and to be denied that was heartbreaking. But I didn’t give up, and John encouraged me to stay in touch and reapply for the following summer. So I made sure I still held my head high, and do the most that I could, which was talking to John. Two, networking is one of the most powerful tools you can have in your career. I believe I got this job at Ford almost fully because of networking. Obviously, you have to meet certain criteria of the company and have basic knowledge to have the position, but I impressed John and showed him my passion for working for someone like him and a company like Ford.
Like the Career Center on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
#UMBCintern
Want to be the next Intern of the Week? Make sure to fill out this form and stay tuned. New interns are announced every Friday!
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