Anil Shaji was pretty content going to UMBC for classes and returning to his home in Elkridge, Maryland, as soon as his academic obligations were over. Until one day, a notice on myUMBC caught his eye—the Career Center was organizing an exploratory trip to Morgan Stanley for potential interns that week. As a senior studying political science, Shaji had originally imagined a role for himself at a security agency or somewhere in politics, not a financial institution. But expanding his perspective, he stepped out of his comfort zone and thought, “Why not take the trip?” 

Shaji took a UMBC bus with about 20 other interested students and spent the day chatting with Morgan Stanley recruiters about what the three-month, full-time paid internship would look like. Shaji went home and quickly updated his resume, completed a virtual interview, and submitted his application. Later, Shaji was invited to SuperDay, where top candidates undergo multiple rounds of interviews with the firm. Eight months later, he’s wrapping up his placement as an operations summer analyst in Morgan Stanley’s institutional securities group and he sees a viable future using his major in a financial services career.

“There are multiple paths—many that are not linear—to get to your longer-term goal,” says Marykate Conroy, associate director of internships and employment in UMBC’s Career Center who often coaches students through the internship application process. “Diverse experiences also may open doors for students that they didn’t even see as possible.”

Hundreds of Retrievers are completing internships this summer, putting their skills to use in real life settings and trying out roles in industries they might want to pursue after graduation. Many of these students are discovering how their goals could be supported and strengthened by an internship not originally on their radar.

Looking for creative freedom

When Kayla Moore saw a LinkedIn post advertising a graphic design internship for the communications department at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), she was initially hesitant to apply for several reasons. Moore, a senior studying visual arts, was aware of Johns Hopkins, but didn’t know anything about APL, and she was nervous about the communications-side of things—would she be required to write? She didn’t see what she did yet as a designer as a way of communicating content to an audience.

She went into her internship search “wanting to find something in the middle of having creative freedom and being structured. And this role has been ideal,” Moore says. So far, she’s designed graphics for papers, posters, and her favorite project—a sticker for a company family fun day. She pitched the design as a “draw your own picture” sticker that includes an APL logo or phrase, and to her surprise, that’s what the team went with. 

The biggest skill she’s learned so far? Communication, she laughs. In past roles, she says, she’s finished her design and passed it along to her supervisor or professor and that was it. At APL, “I have to talk to at least four or five people before anything goes to print,” says Moore. “Someone reviews my design and offers feedback; someone checks for spelling. And then I need to talk to the print shop and ask if things look good. So communication was definitely the biggest thing that I’ve learned in order to make sure I’m not slowing down the process to get a project out.”

Let your motivation lead you

Misan Ayomike is spending the summer at the University of Chicago in an economics internship with Pietro Veronesi, a preeminent economist and a dean at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The catch? “I’m not really that cognizant in the econ field,” Ayomike freely admits. “I’m an information systems major senior.” But Veronesi was open to any major “with strong quantitative and analytical backgrounds” and good references to work on his project researching the R&D costs for oncology, and Ayomike knew she’d get what she wanted out of the internship—feedback on her own ongoing research project. 

Left: Headshot of Misan Ayomike. Right: Ayomike at the Leadership Alliance Conference after presenting her own research project conducted during her internship at the University of Chicago. Photos courtesy of Ayomike.

When Christine Routzahn, director of UMBC’s Career Center, brought this opportunity to Ayomike, she jumped at the chance to earn a sizeable stipend, experience life in a different city, and have dedicated time and feedback while conducting her own manual and statistical review on how accurate and efficient Chat GPT’s 4o AI model is at reviewing and replicating data from annual reports of pharmaceutical companies. The internship, coordinated through the Leadership Alliance, culminated in a conference where Ayomike presented her work. 

Ayomike’s advisor Bill Ryan, a lecturer in information systems, was one of her references when she applied. Looking back, he knew she’d be a good fit because “she liked and enjoyed research, as well as understood and sought out articles of interest in her topic areas,” he says. “This opportunity would provide her with that research opportunity and to also demonstrate some of the learning she’s done in information systems. It was an opportunity to pull everything together that motivated her.”

Relying on different strengths

Within his major, Shaji says, his favorite classes have been intelligence-based or about international relations, so originally he thought that meant pursuing an internship at a place like Northrop Grumman or the CIA. But after visiting Morgan Stanley, he saw the social sciences connection. “The banking industry is heavily regulated and there are laws in place that banks need to follow, so what Congress passes affects the firm as well as the clients.” 

For Shaji’s role at Morgan Stanley, he’s looking at new types of data every day. “When we lend securities out to hedge funds, we need to observe whether they’re in compliance—whether Morgan Stanley is properly making those transactions or actions—and we’re ensuring that we’re following all protocols internally as well as with government regulations,” says Shaji. “We are working to ensure that the numbers are all adding up correctly as they should.”

Shaji’s biggest takeaway from Morgan Stanley was how necessary voices are from all perspectives. “When you bring in a group of people who are quantitative majors or political science majors and art majors and you put them into a group,” he says, “they can truly build out some awesome solutions to existing problems. But it requires all those different perspectives—all those different strengths—put together.”

Right: Anil Shaji in the offices at Morgan Stanley in downtown Baltimore. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC).

No such thing as a “perfect internship” 

While some students may have difficulty thinking about options other than their ideal placement, says Conroy in the Career Center, eventually students become excited about the increased options and opportunities that won’t throw them off track with their future goals. “The pressure to get the ‘perfect internship’ is released,” she says.

Moore, at APL, was excited to dive into the world of digital design but says she knows now she wants to explore positions that also let her work with her hands. When thinking about advice for other Retrievers looking for internships, she says, “Think about it as an extended job interview—there’s always a chance you can get hired on afterward, but also it’s an experience for you to see if you actually really like this industry.”

Ayomike concluded her internship by presenting her own research at a Leadership Alliance conference in Harford, Connecticut. Thinking back over her summer at the University of Chicago, she says, “I hadn’t ever really thought of going into econ or research, so this experience broadened my field of thinking. I learned about a lot of things I did not know that I did not know.”

A few weeks into her summer internship with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, rising senior Ortisemoyowa “Moyo” Ikomi, chemical engineering, attended an event celebrating a milestone in the company’s construction of a new drug manufacturing plant in Rockville, Maryland. During the event, the organizers played a video featuring a young girl whose seemingly terminal cancer was cured with immunotherapy drugs—the same type of drugs that would be manufactured in the new facility.

“This girl was in hospice care, at home with her family who thought they might just have to wait for her life to end, and this drug gave her a new lease on life. It drove home for me how important this work is, and how I would love to keep working in the pharmaceutical industry,” says Ikomi.

Ikomi landed her internship with AstraZeneca after talking with a company representative at the UMBC Career Fair. She worked on the company’s management of the planned Rockville plant, investigating a software tool that could track construction progress.

“It’s not traditional chemical engineering, more within the realm of project management of large-scale engineering projects. I’m definitely enjoying it,” Ikomi says. “I’ve learned so much during the internship. The experience has made me think I’d like to continue working in the engineering project management sphere.”

Ikomi credits the UMBC Career Center with supporting her throughout her internship application process—consulting with her on application timelines, uncovering resources for finding job openings, and offering tips for honing her resume and interviewing skills. “They offer an invaluable service,” she says. “Even more students could benefit from using them.” 

Ikomi, who came to UMBC from Lagos, Nigeria, says she arrived thinking she wanted to be a scientific researcher. When she realized basic research wasn’t the best fit for her, faculty and fellow students listened as she talked through her dilemma and offered advice on other options. She found that her true passions lay in shepherding discoveries from the lab to the wider world, where they could directly impact people’s lives.

Since that celebration event at AstraZeneca, Ikomi says she often thinks back to the video of the young girl who was cured of cancer. “When I think of this internship as a whole, my mind always goes to that experience. That moment crystallized that this type of work is what I want to dedicate my career to.” 

With plans to become a professional photographer, Luna Siesko, a rising senior in visual arts, has already generated an impressive portfolio of work, ranging from portraiture to landscapes to event photography. But Siesko knows that in order to succeed as an artist, in today’s world, that also means succeeding as a small business owner—promoting herself and her work in the marketplace.

For Siesko, a summer internship at the Baltimore County Arts Guild (BCAG) in nearby Catonsville provided a key opportunity to broaden her skills, expanding her background in social media, website posts, space management, and event planning, developing capabilities that she feels will ground her in the future. “I’ve always had this dream of having my own studio space, and some sort of exhibit space for my work,” Siesko says. “And so this internship has been really applicable to that—making sure that the space is managed and accessible, and everything is running smoothly.”

Young artists like Siesko who study in UMBC’s dance, music, theatre, and visual arts programs often choose to establish themselves as independent practitioners, whether performing on stage, creating artwork, or expressing their work in other ways. Siesko says this will allow her to continue doing what she loves: “I just really enjoy working with people and being able to capture how multifaceted people can be.”

Engaging the community in the arts

A special focal point of Siesko’s work this summer was promotion of BCAG’s Arts & Drafts Summer Music Festival, held at Guinness Open Gate Brewery in late June. “A lot of the work I’ve been doing for them I would consider to be outreach work,” Siesko shares. “So I’ve been making posts on their website and doing social media. And for Arts and Drafts, I voiced a video, a little commercial they made to promote the festival.”

Established in 2012, the non-profit Baltimore County Arts Guild fosters the arts throughout Baltimore County, and is also the managing entity of the Catonsville Arts District, which is centered along downtown Frederick Road. “Luna’s creativity always shines through in her work,” says Gloria Fajimolu, programs and events manager at BCAG, who supervised Siesko’s internship. “Throughout her internship, she’s engaged with clients for rentals, liaised with contractors, established connections with a myriad of businesses, and fostered collaboration with talented artists.She’s always exploring new ideas and growing, despite any challenges along the way.”

Two untitled portrait photographs by Luna Siesko, courtesy of Siesko.

On campus, Siesko has been able to hone her skills through work at commonvision, UMBC’s print and design center, where she has focused on event photography and videography—images of people on campus and signature events such as Homecoming and Quadmania, as well as helping film a promotional video for the Woolies at UMBC.

Looking forward to what comes next

Siesko gives a special shout-out to the Career Center, where she  found her summer internship opportunity. “My first two years at UMBC I didn’t really go to any career fairs, because I wasn’t sure what I was looking for at all. But then I went to one to try to find an internship, and that was very helpful to me,” says Siesko, “and that’s how I am where I am now.”

After graduation next spring, Siesko plans to continue work as a freelance photographer, basing her work in the Baltimore area. “I’ve really fallen in love with the arts scene, and have met a lot of great people here,” she says. “I can’t imagine myself ever being too far away from Maryland.”