Name: Valerie Pasquale

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Community Lodgings, Inc. 

Position Title: Outreach and Development Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Health Administration and Policy

Expected Graduation Year: December 2017

Briefly describe your internship, co-op,  or research opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

This summer, I participated in The Washington Center's internship program and was placed at Community Lodgings, Inc. They are a small nonprofit in Alexandria that helps lift the community members from a life of poverty by providing affordable housing, transitional housing, and after school and summer youth education programs. I helped the Development Director with researching and writing grant proposals, cleaned up their donor database, sent donor thank you letters, created marketing materials for their fall fundraiser, and researched corporate sponsorship opportunities. 

Describe the process of obtaining your internship, research, or co-op opportunity.

I applied to The Washington Center's summer program, and with help from the UMBC Career Center and TWC's Office of Academic Internships, I secured my position at Community Lodgings. I took advantage of resume reviews and mock interviews with the UMBC Career Center. These services definitely helped me because it's essential to be comfortable with phone interviews to secure an intern position through TWC.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I've enjoyed my flexibility. My internship supervisor really cares about what I'm learning in my position. Because our office is so small, if I want to learn a new task, I have the opportunity to take on a new responsibility. 

How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?

I'm so lucky to have been placed at Community Lodgings because I have had the opportunity to do truly meaningful work. My largest responsibility this summer is to gain fiscal support from writing grant proposals. I'm using the research skills I learned at UMBC to help this nonprofit get funded, and they in turn are supporting the surrounding neighborhoods. 

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

Don't eliminate any experience because of lack of funds! There are always opportunities, whether it be through grants, scholarships or other aid. Don't let a price tag get in the way of an amazing experience! Thanks to the state of Maryland and UMBC, my program costs were completely covered. 

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!

Student Life is now accepting applications for two great leadership opportunities listed below. The deadline is Tuesday, November 6th at midnight. You don't want to miss out on this opportunity!

Alternative Spring Break

A week long service-learning trip that challenges students to combat civic issues underlying larger societal concerns. ASB will leave participants with a sense of comrade, compassion, and empathy for the people of the world.

This year’s trips: Homelessness, Public Health, “Seeing Baltimore,” and Gesundheit.  

STRiVE Leadership Retreat

STRiVE participants hone leadership skills, develop campus and social change projects, build community and have a lot fun. STRiVE's many activities will keep you engaged, and you'll emerge feeling confident, inspired and connected. Participants' ratings of the retreat have been off the charts. 100% of former participants say they'd recommend STRiVE to a friend.

See the attached flyer for more details and apply through the provided link!

Program: The Data Incubator is an intensive 8 week fellowship that prepares masters students, PhDs, and postdocs in STEM and social science fields seeking industry careers as data scientists. The program is free for Fellows and supported by sponsorships from hundreds of employers across multiple industries. In response to the overwhelming interest in our earlier sessions, we will be holding another fellowship.

Who Should Apply: Anyone who has already obtained a masters or PhD degree or who is within one year of graduating with a masters or PhD is welcome to apply. Applications from international students are welcome. Everyone else is encouraged to sign-up for a future session.

Locations: There will be both an in-person (in NYC, DC, SF) and online section of the fellowship using the common application below.

Dates: All sections will be from 2017-01-03 to 2017-02-24

Application Link: https://www.thedataincubator.com/fellowship.html#apply?ref=wcm91dHphaG5AdW1iYy5lZHU=

Data Science in 30 minutes: Learn how to build a data-science project in our upcoming free Data Science in 30-minutes webcast. Signup soon as space is limited.

Learn More: You can learn about our fellows at The New York Times, LinkedIn, Amazon, Capital One, or Palantir. To read about our latest fellow alumni, check out our blog. To learn more about The Data Incubator, check us out on Venture Beat, The Next Web, or Harvard Business Review.

The Department of Homeland Security Secretary's Honors Program is hosting an Cyber Student Volunteer Initiative Recognition event on Friday, October 21st from 10AM - 12PM at the National Association of Home Builders (1201 15th St NW Washington, DC 20005). This event is open to high school, undergraduate and graduate students studying cyber security, computer science, or STEM related disciplines, accompanying faculty members, DHS Components and industry partners. Event space is limited!

Please see the attached invitation form. This is a great opportunity for students interested in cyber to learn more about the Secretary’s Honors Program and to network with professionals and CSVI alumni working in industry and government. Registration is available here: http://www.cvent.com/d/1vqz6f

Please feel free to contact Helena Bentley at  hbentley@cambridgeglobal.com or  (331) 333-9005 for more information.

Name: Lilly Vartain

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: BGE

Position Title: Gas Business Support Engineering Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Mechanical Engineering

Expected Graduation Year: May 2018

Briefly describe your internship, co-op,  or research opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

This summer I worked as a full-time intern on the Gas Business Support team at BGE's Spring Gardens campus where their liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant is located. My main task this past summer was to develop a report that analyzes gas outages by looking at the different characteristics of the pipe that failed, the weather at the time of the outage, and the type of outage. I also researched developing technologies that could be implemented to reduce the outages. Creating this report involved learning new excel techniques to handle the large amount of data that I was dealing with; also I had to learn how to navigate several of the company's databases in order to extract the necessary information.

The intern program offered several opportunities to meet other interns in the company as well as network with company professionals. BGE's interns were divided into six team composed of five or six members, and we were assigned a project to present our idea of what BGE will look like in the future. The project was left very open-ended so each of the teams had to be creative in strategizing how to present their projects. On the last day of the internship, the presentations will be shown to many of the different managers who had an intern in their group.

Finally, I had the opportunity to go out in the field on several occasions. I went on a gas leak survey; I got to see where a new gas main is being installed; I visited Old Ellicott City after the flood left the area devastated; and most excitingly, I was able to climb all 162 stairs to the top of one of the LNG tanks! 

Describe the process of obtaining your internship, research, or co-op opportunity.

First, I had the Career Center look over and help me edit my resume before attending the Fall Career Fair. I handed out my resume to multiple companies at the fair; then, once I was offered an interview for a position at BGE, I scheduled a mock interview in which I got to practice interviewing skills and received feedback on my performance. Then I had two interviews; one was on UMBC’s campus and the second one took place at one of BGE’s office locations.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

What I enjoyed the most was being able to get out in the field to see first-hand the work that BGE is doing to ensure the reliability of gas supply to the Baltimore area. 

How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?

I think that my report will help the company to begin to look more closely at what can be done to prevent gas outages as the customer base for LNG grows. I also have helped other company employees work more efficiently by doing some of their assignments with which they had need for assistance. 

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

I would advise other students to take advantage of the services that the Career Center offers. While it might be a little bit of a hassle to set up and go to appointments, it is certainly worth the effort. I especially would recommend doing a mock interview; I am a more introverted person who is not the most comfortable in interviews, but after doing a practice run, I was much more confident and relaxed for my actual interview than I would have been.

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 is with great pleasure that we announce the opening of the USAID Donald M. Payne International Development Fellowship Program 2017 application! The application can be found at www.paynefellows.org and will remain open until January 20, 2017.

The Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship seeks to prepare young people for careers in international development as Foreign Service Officers in USAID.  USAID has expanded the program, which selected three fellows in 2013, and will offer up to ten fellowships in 2017. The best way for potential applicants to learn more about the programs is through the website at www.paynefellows.org.  They can also feel free to contact USAID directly by e-mail (paynefellows.org) or phone (202-806-5952).  

The Payne Fellowship Program provides benefits of up to $94,000 over two years toward a two-year master's degree, arranges internships in Washington D.C. and at USAID missions overseas, and provides professional development and support activities leading to employment in USAID.  Fellows may use the fellowship to attend a two-year master's program in a U.S. institution to study an area of relevance to the USAID Foreign Service, including international relations, public policy, agriculture, environmental sciences, health, business administration, economics, or urban planning at a graduate or professional school approved by the Payne Program.  At the end of the two-year fellowship, Fellows enter the USAID Foreign Service.  The Payne Fellowship encourages the application of members of minority groups who have historically been underrepresented in international development careers and those with financial need.  Applicants must be college seniors or graduates looking to start graduate school in the fall of the year they apply, have GPAs of at least 3.2 and be U.S. citizens. The program welcomes applications from those with any undergraduate major.

Attached you will find a flyer and newsletter providing you with more information about the fellowship, as well as some tips to help guide you through the application process!