Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Penn State Career Conversations podcast. I’m Zach Follador. This episode will serve as part 2 in our series about successful summer internships, and I’m excited to share these conversations with you, as I found them very insightful.

My first guest on this episode is Ryan Peterson, a senior aerospace engineering student who was offered an internship this past summer based on research he was doing with one of his faculty members at Penn State Brandywine. His good work doing research turned into something much more, and this conversation is a great highlight of how sometimes opportunities present themselves through non-traditional means.

Next up, I’m joined by Paul Kyriakos. Paul is a multi-disciplinary engineering design student at the  Abington campus, and he completed his internship this past summer with NAVSEA, a division within the Department of the Navy. Paul and I chatted about what it was like completing an internship with a government agency, what the application and interview process was like, and how that process differed from what you might experience in industry. For any students interested in working for the government, this conversation is a must listen.

My third and final guest on this episode is Shariyf Goldstein. Shariyf is a senior at the Brandywine campus finishing up his degree in American Studies. Shariyf is in the middle of an internship with the Urban Affairs Coalition of Philadelphia, specifically helping with their “Home Buy Now” program, which helps folks obtain mortgages to buy houses. Shariyf talks about how he found the internship, how his classwork prepared him, and the advantages of interning with a non-profit.

These interviews that I’ve done for this series have been very enlightening, and I hope you’ve enjoyed them as much as I have.