NYC: Live, Learn, Intern

At colleges across America, an internship is the prize goal of students to bridge the gap between their final two years of school, or even during their final semester. Many students aren't lucky enough to get an internship and are thrown into the "real world" after graduation. This isn't the case at Fordham, in fact it's quite the opposite. With over 93% of students completing an internship, Fordham is a leader in job placement and giving students "real world" experience in and outside of the classroom. After all, it's New York City, why not take advantage of it?

The view from my desk at my internship

This semester, I started my 3rd internship of my college career at a startup called The Vanity Project (TVP). Co-founded by a Fordham Law student, TVP specializes in creating high-quality clothing and merchandise for non-profit organizations, most of which are sponsored by headlining celebrities. Even with my heavy course-load this semester, I'm able to juggle working one full day a week (Wednesday, my day off from class) at our incredible office space in Chelsea, just a 25-30 minute ride on the D express subway train from Fordham's Rose Hill Campus. TVP is a great fit for me because it combines my past experience in retail with my studies of finance here at Gabelli, and it's also a place I feel proud working for because so much of our work goes to supporting nonprofit groups and charities like NoMore, Global Citizen, EQIL, and many more.

Coming into college, I was skeptical of Fordham's career services program, but I've been nothing but amazed with the office ever since I've been here. Going through the college search, all 20 (yes, 20) schools I visited claimed they had the best, but Fordham's landed me two internships in my three semesters here. Career services does everything from helping with résumé building, polishing up LinkedIn profiles, giving mock interviews, career fairs, and everything in between. Landing two internships before my Sophomore year did nothing but shock most of my friends from home, but then again, they don't all have the world's greatest city right at their fingertips.

A collage from the Global Citizen festival in central park.
Global Citizen is one of the many charities TVP makes merchandise for