Lauren Berger, known as “the Intern Queen,” had 15 internships as an undergrad and came to campus Wednesday to help N.C. State students get one of their own.
Berger, who spoke at D.H. Hill Auditorium, is the CEO of internqueen.com and travels around the country speaking at college campuses. She has contributed to The Today Show, Fox & Friends, The New York Times, The New York Post, Teen Vogue, Bloomberg, LA Weekly and more. She regularly contributes to AOL Jobs, USA Today, Huffington Post and Seventeen.com.
Berger gave the audience members her email address and encouraged them to contact her as a resource for seeking internships.
The event, hosted by the Public Relations Student Society of America at N.C. State, was part of Berger’s “Limited On-Campus Tour,” a series of internship talks she is giving at colleges across the country sponsored by The Limited clothing store.
Danielle Mayber, president of PRSSA, said Berger created internqueen.com as a resource to make it easier for college students to get internships.
“[Berger’s] mission is to help students take advantage of their resources for internships,” Mayber said.
Berger graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2006 and said students need a minimum of two internship experiences before graduation. Whether they are paid or unpaid positions doesn’t matter.
“I don’t care so much about the paycheck as I do about the experience,” Berger said. “Internships are a solution to figuring out how you want to spend your time after college.”
Berger got her first internship as a freshman in college after being told by the career center at her university that she would not have a chance at gaining an internship until she was a senior.
“I submitted my resume to the internship coordinator the same night I spoke to her, and she told me that she had never had a student follow up with her within 24 hours of their conversation,” Berger said. “Take advantage of your professional contacts, and email them immediately.”
Berger constantly reinforced the importance of building “below the surface” relationships with professionals and said students should write personal thank-you notes and contact all their professionals at least three times every year.
Susan Katz, an associate professor of English who teaches the professional internships course for students in the college of humanities and social sciences at N.C. State, said not enough students at N.C. State are seeking internships.
“Students might have an idea of what they want to do after college, but until they get some experience, they will not know for sure,” Katz said. “In an internship, students get first-hand experience and gain knowledge of where to start their careers.”
Katz said that an annual survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers listed internships as one of the top-three things employers seek when looking for new employees.
Berger emphasized that in a competitive job market, students have to be persistent.
“I learned early on that you don’t take no for an answer and that whenever there’s a no, you find a yes,” Berger said. “You are going to get rejected for the rest of your life, but that rejection has to propel you to keep going, keep moving, until you find that ‘yes.’”
Brian-Anthony Garrison, a senior in English at N.C. State who attended Berger’s talk, said Berger’s advice and experiences were valuable to students graduating and seeking careers.
“It was a nice reminder that you have to go out and take the initiative in today’s job market,” Garrison said.
In a Q&A session with students after her talk, Berger said if students have an interest in a particular field, they should seek an internship to find out if it is something they would want to consider as a career.
“All of you can think about what you want to do and the ways you’re going to get there,” Berger said. “I can promise more times than not that it’s all going to start with an internship.”
