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Succeeding As Entrepreneurs: Summer Interns Get in Touch With Their Inner Bosses
Barnard is launching an entrepreneurial initiative that combines summer internships anywhere in the world with independent study and workshops during the academic year to prepare young women to start businesses and become their own bosses. The program is unusual because Barnard is a selective liberal arts college, not a business school.
With $400,000 provided by the Trust Family Foundation, a New Hampshire-based fund, Barnard awarded stipends to the first set of 30 students who competed for the funds this year to support summer internships in commercial and non-profit settings. The foundation funds projects in the arts, education, Jewish philanthropies and medical technology within New England.
Unlike typical career internships, the Trust Family Foundation Entrepreneurial Internship Program will give these students the chance to learn business skills like marketing and management in a self-directed way, then build on them through independent study and workshops.
The goal is to gain the experience that will help launch select Barnard women into entrepreneurial careers, whether starting profitable businesses of their own, developing initiatives in the non-profit or commercial world or even working within a corporation, but operating with the "mind-set" of an entrepreneur.
The interns will present their projects at a juried business plan competition in the spring, where the top students will receive cash prizes of $3,000 and $2,000.
"Barnard is located in what is arguably the entrepreneurial capital of the world," said Dorothy Denburg, Dean of the College. "Our students have access to magnificent internship opportunities in corporate and other settings. Through the generosity of the Trust Family Foundation, we can now support our students in a way that we hope will make a huge difference when they graduate."
The internships allow students to test the waters of a potential career. Kathleen Kallstrom a rising sophomore, is an intern at the Heartland Equine Therapeutic Riding Academy in Nebraska, where she hopes to learn whether or not she is cut out to run a business of her own. "The idea is pretty intimidating to me," she admits. "I decided I might as well tackle my fears and learn what being an entrepreneur really involves."
Julia Chiverton, a rising junior and an aspiring veterinarian, says her internship this summer at an animal medical center is helping to clarify her goals. "I knew this experience would give me a head start in the field, but I've also learned that I can establish a very successful practice if I focus on surgery, which fascinates me."
Philosophy major Natalie Bell '06 is learning about the magazine trade at a cultural publication in Los Angeles. "Every day I'm blown away by the many different aspects of production I'm learning."
Many interns say that the most important lesson they've learned is that entrepreneurial skills can be valuable in any endeavor. In the words of Nachama Rosen, an intern at the Chicago-based technology company Teradyne, "Being an entrepreneur doesn't necessarily mean creating your own business-it's a mind-set, an understanding that you are capable of being in charge, and can create your own opportunities."
Elayne Garrett, Senior Associate Director of the Barnard Office of Career Development, said: "Most internships available to students are unpaid, and many of our students must earn money over summer breaks. Of these, a growing number are looking for precisely the kind of entrepreneurial experience the Trust grant provides. And so the Foundation's support opens up for scores of Barnard students a wealth of opportunities."
Only about one-third of the 1,300 internships available to students at Barnard are paid, although the College has successfully sought donor support to provide stipends for some internships. Internships are available to Barnard students during the academic year, as well, and include top institutions like the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Yankees, CNN, National Public Radio, and leading corporations in financial services and health care.
For more information, please contact Suzanne Trimel in the Barnard Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-7583, strimel@barnard.edu |
