On October 15, Smithies in Business held its second annual internship panel. The flow of students continuously came and went: some of them chatted with representatives while the others ate lunch and talked to their peers. This created a strong and effective networking environment for students to achieve related internship experience as well as to build professional and personal relationships with those interested in the same field.
“This is just the second year we[‘ve] held the internship panel.” The president of Smithies in Business Club Kaitlyn Coyne ‘19 told me. Last year, she was the treasurer of the club, and she proposed the idea of holding an internship panel.
Concerning the distribution of work, Coyne told me that last year, it was mainly up to her to deal with everything, due to her strong interest in holding the panel. “I set up the catering order, reserved the space and I made the poster for it and all the other things [to do].” She added that it wasn’t because other people weren’t helping out, it was just because she was the one who proposed this idea, and thus, she was in charge of it.
“This year, people from [the] Business Club board help me set up the panel, and ask[ed] their friends to come. But trying to coordinate with other clubs is still my job.” Now, as the president of the Business Club, Coyne distributed more work out and remained in charge of the major issues of the internship panel.
When I asked about the change Coyne felt with the internship panel between these two years, she mentioned to me that she felt a lack of diversity of internship representatives presented this year. “We have less partnership with other clubs. Last year there [was the] Republican Club, the Democratic Club and the Consulting Club; they all agreed to co-sponsor with us. But this year, the only club that has [responded to] us was SACSA.”
Coyne told me that many factors might cause this consequence. “It was a different year. Clubs have different board members; maybe they have different objectives and feel like ours are not aligning with theirs.”
Talking about expectations for the future internship panel, Coyne said she was graduating, so she wouldn’t be there anymore. However, she hoped that more inclusivity and diversity could be presented through the internship panel. “Hopefully [we will] make [the internship panel] more [accessible] to the first year[s] and sophomore[s], have more people from non-finance backgrounds and [have] more internships applicable to other students.”
