One month into my internship I thought it would be time to give everyone a bit of an update on my activities. Initially, I was offered a position with Education Pioneers in New York City. Education Pioneers is a group that recruits JD, MBA, and Masters of Education students and places them in positions to help improve inner city education. I was very excited to land the opportunity to apply all I had learned at Tulane with my experience with Teach For America.
However, near the end of the school year, I was offered the opportunity to help launch a brand new charter school in New Orleans. The internship has me completing finance and operations work for the school such as meeting vendors, negotiating contracts, and running models to determine what financial decisions the school should make. With only a month before teachers report and 6 weeks before school starts, I still have plenty to do to ensure Pride College Prep is up and running this fall.
Now, here comes the advice part.
Part I: Your internship search will turn out the most successful if you know what you want to do right away. The search will begin at the start of the first semester while you also have tests and networking to worry about. With all of the opportunities available and demands on your time, focusing in on what you want to do will prove to be tremendously helpful. Stop by the Career Center early and often.
Part II: Develop a network in New Orleans. Whether you plan to stay in New Orleans following graduation or not, there is no reason to ignore all of the potential contacts in the city. I landed my internship because of a connection I made outside of the business school. Currently, there are many groups of people in the city working to keep young professionals in the city. I highly recommend you check out 504ward and the Idea Village.
-Eric