Learn While You Work

Karen

Karen Siderovski '19, National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Major:

International business and management

Internship title:

Office of Intramural Training and Education intern.

How I got this internship:

I got this internship by networking with a family member/personal connection.

What I do, day to day:

My office has several summer programs that range from high school college preparation to post-graduate school research programs, and everyday I assist the program supervisors with any survey data analysis, records management or career development workshops.

Other internships:

This upcoming fall semester, I will be interning with the Cumberland County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), which entails observing dependency court hearings and helping CASA volunteers train for their work with children in the child welfare system. Further in the future, I am hoping to intern with a human capital consulting firm, the Human Rights Campaign, or an organization that provides human resources management and organizational behavior services to companies.

Most valuable part of this experience:

By attending and assisting in my offices’ various training workshops, I have learned my preferred work styles and I have further developed my own career goals. Additionally, I have learned how to present those topics in a way that can be tailored to different genres of audiences (different ages, education levels, or types of occupations).

Advice for students considering internships:

Reach out to your personal and professional network when seeking opportunities, and if you find an internship that you think may not be exactly what you are planning to do in the future, you should still go for it because the work environment and experience can help show you things you did like about that line of work and things you hope to look for in future opportunities.

How this internship has helped me:

The work in my internship has helped me develop my adaptability, because every day brings something different. My office specializes in training and education, so I’ve been able to explore the training and development aspects of human resources management, which is the field I am interested in working after Dickinson.

Post-Dickinson plans:

I would love to work for an HR consulting firm after graduation. My dream is to eventually go to graduate school for industrial/organizational psychology or to business school for an MBA that would concentrate on human resources management.

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Published October 14, 2017