Entering the Internship from Spain
Hello everyone,
My name is Atiya Sharmin and I am currently a rising senior. I am concentrating in finance and have been interested in investment banking ever since I entered the Youth About Business program, an investment banking educational program offered to high school students. Courses such as MCE, OEM and MCFE allowed me to gain some educational yet experiential learning as well. While consulting for a venture capital firm, Highland Capital Partners, during the MCFE program hosted by CCD, I was able to gain a better grasp on the relationship between entrepreneurship and finance. As an intern at a middle market private capital and service provider deal making firm, ACG New York Inc., I am able to take my education one step further as I attend conferences, networking events and ACG University classes (held at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business) with leading top-level executives.
Though I am now taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by this internship, getting to this stage in my career was not the easiest process. Last semester, I was studying abroad in Seville, Spain. It was an amazing experience in which, I traveled to 2 continents, 5 countries and 15 different cities. I am more cultured and open-minded than I was 6 months ago and do not plan on halting this incredible value added act of traveling during my lifetime. Mark Twain wrote, “twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” On that note, although I agree with many students who say going abroad during the spring semester of junior year makes it extremely difficult to find an internship, I believe that it is even more difficult to make up for the lost opportunity to build social capital if internship difficulty deters them from choosing an abroad experience. The key to streamlining the process of gaining an internship while out of the country is to prepare for a risky goal far in advance by networking, not just sending in a résumé. In my case, I had been networking with my current boss, an alumna of Babson whom I met during a Babson sponsored event in New York, for about a year and half before being hired by him. As Babson students, we have access to many established alumni who are willing to help one of their own. Due to the Babson event, I gained a helpful contact who is now a part of my network.
Until next time,
Atiya