{"id":15025,"date":"2017-08-29T19:37:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T23:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/?p=15025"},"modified":"2023-11-28T09:25:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T14:25:01","slug":"unexpected-internship-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/2017-samsung-internship-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unexpected Internship Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 21st<\/sup> century has seen the rise of the millennial. According to a report from the Business and Professional Women\u2019s Foundation<\/a>, by 2025, we will be making up around 75% of the workforce,<\/a> a trend which has also led to the steady rise in prominence of internships. These highly-coveted, increasingly-competitive opportunities are more career-friendly and prestigious than your average summer job \u2013 and while temporary, they are critical for helping us get a future, permanent position. As more of us seek this resume-boosting work, more companies are recruiting this generation\u2019s top talent and offering perks, such as gadgets galore, competitive pay and top-tier executive access. But one question still remains. What are we really hoping to get out of our internships other than a recognizable brand name under our belts?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In speaking with Laura Agharkar, who leads the Samsung Electronics America University Relations team, it was evident how the company hopes to tackle this question by maintaining a focus on treating interns like actual employees with \u201ca robust experience that is real-life work.\u201d By pushing them\u201d to use their unique perspective on a variety of projects, interns seize the opportunity to showcase their skills and talents\u201d and bring the initiative to turn their projects into something that will make a quantifiable, positive impact on the company.<\/p>\n

Samsung is one of many vying for fresh new talent to fill its ranks. In this competition between employers fighting for interns and interns fighting for employers, how does it see itself as a standout among other prestigious programs?<\/p>\n

\u201cMany interns select a company not knowing exactly what projects they\u2019ll be working on and how their role contributes to the company\u2019s success,\u201d Agharkar said. She also stated that<\/strong> \u201cthey are hired only for their skill sets and then placed directly into that business. For us, the benefits of having our managers plan ahead to pre-select projects, engage during the hiring process, identify interns who are excited\u2026this creates experiences that are meaningful for both the intern and our organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Indeed, the company, which considers giving back to be a key component of its culture, looks at its internship as an investment in today\u2019s youth to develop them into future innovators. I came here wanting to continue pursuing my passion for service, using my skills and background, through my work. It\u2019s the same reason that initially piqued my interest in community service, ultimately drew me to Columbia, inspired my passion for journalism and later brought me to Samsung. In keeping an open mind about where I wanted to end up, I turned down a competing offer at a media company that seemed like it was right up my alley, and in doing so, stumbled upon an internship experience that would ironically prove to be more beneficial for my future career interests.<\/p>\n

As a member of the Corporate Reputation team, I was excited by the responsibilities I was entrusted with. I co-moderated a conversation with Today Show co-anchor Hoda Kotb as part of the Summer Discovery Series, a corporate citizenship initiative to bring various industry leaders to the company\u2019s flagship experience space, Samsung 837, to speak on career development. Though drafting newsroom and intranet posts, I learned firsthand about all of the other ways in which the company gives back to the community. It quickly became clear that the months-long hiring and interviewing process had been about ensuring that not only would I be a good fit for the position, but that it would be a good fit for me and have something new and valuable to offer me in terms of skills which I will later need to succeed in today\u2019s workforce and make a positive impact with my career someday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Through conversations with fellow interns about the reasons why they each chose to come here, it is evident that each of us had our expectations of what an internship in this day and age means challenged. As someone who found himself to be particularly passionate about music growing up, Woo Sung Jeon, a rising senior at Cornell, had found it unlikely that he would be working for a tech company before learning about Samsung 837, which is complete with an in-house DJ booth and theater that houses dozens of concerts a year. However, his on-the-ground experience showed him that it was possible to merge his passions and be a part of something that \u201cno other tech company is doing\u201d \u2013 creating a space in which people with different passions can converge to find a common interest in technology.<\/p>\n

Characterized by this diversity in our experiences and the varying skills we bring to the table, we share one feature with all the other interns: a passion for the work we are doing now and hope to do in the future. Agharkar recognizes this as she thinks about the potential interns of tomorrow. \u201cHow do we,\u201d she asked, \u201ccontinually evolve our program to provide the benefits future interns are looking for in an employer but also be able to use the unique perspective and strengths that they will bring?\u201d Potential interns should ask the same question of themselves in their job search. With just a few collegiate summers to take advantage of, internships help us discover and develop those skills we most need, to accomplish the things we most desire.<\/p>\n

\n

About the Contributor<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gloria Tso, a rising junior at Columbia University, was a summer intern at Samsung. There, she sat down with Laura Agharkar, Samsung University Relations head and Woo Sung Jeon, Samsung\u2019s 837 Customer Experience intern, in a deeper look at how the internship is continually evolving \u2014 as well as Samsung\u2019s take on that evolution.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 21st century has seen the rise of the millennial. According to a report from the Business and Professional Women\u2019s Foundation, by 2025, we will be making up around 75% of the workforce, a trend which has also led to the steady rise in prominence of internships. These highly-coveted, increasingly-competitive opportunities are more career-friendly and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":15031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29719,17571],"tags":[29711,889,24213,890,287],"blue-badge":[],"class_list":["post-15025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","category-corporate-workforce","tag-intern-day-of-service","tag-internship","tag-life-at-samsung","tag-samsung-culture","tag-samsung-gives"],"acf":{"turn_off_retargeting":false},"fimg_mobile_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/14151242\/Final-intern-photo.jpg","fimg_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/14151242\/Final-intern-photo.jpg","primary_category":{"term_id":29719,"name":"Corporate","slug":"corporate","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":29719,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1026,"filter":"raw","term_link":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/category\/corporate\/","term_path":"corporate"},"badge":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15025"},{"taxonomy":"blue-badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blue-badge?post=15025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}