What I Did on My Summer Break
For CMC students, summer isn’t just about trips to the beach or lounging by the pool. Their 3-month break is an opportunity to continue to learn, explore, and grow. We talked with a group of CMC students to find out what they were up to over the summer break. The responses are impressive and varied, and include studying whales on a remote Canadian island, examining the human brain, and contributing to research on HIV/AIDS. They took summer courses, wrote short stories, and visited more than a dozen national parks on a cross-country road trip. And that's just nine students!
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Max Breitbarth ’17, Economics Major
I went back for a second summer at Equinix, the data center and colocation company I worked at last year. I served as a finance and HR intern, working on developing organizational architecture tools and helping the stock service team evaluate their internal stock benefit programs. It was an exciting summer working for a company that is essentially the backbone of the digital economy. I enjoyed working across departments to learn about how a company builds cohesive functions to drive company and customer success, and enhancing my analytical and financial skills to evaluate stock performance and the value of employee programs. After interviewing twice, I started last year on their client services training and development team, managing online content and studying program data for trends. I also did an internal carbon tax project for their procurement team. After I was amazed with the diverse range of programs that summer, I applied the next year for the same variety of projects but in the finance function.
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Anthony Burre ’19, Major Undecided
Included in the Interdisciplinary Science Scholarship from the Gates Foundation are summer stipends to facilitate internships and research early in college. To take advantage of this with my intended neuroscience major, I acquired a list of professors with whom previous recipients of a different neuroscience summer stipend interned, and I emailed those whose work interested me. One of these was Dr. Grisham, a psychobiology professor at UCLA, and we ended up working together for the summer. I lived in an apartment I was subletting in Westwood and I rode my longboard to the lab five days a week to freeze and slice brains into 40 micron sections, mount them on slides, stain their tissue, and measure volumes of various structures. I had a great time getting introduced to laboratory work and neurohistology techniques, but next summer I plan on trying out a different field of neuroscience to gain perspective.
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Andrew Friedlander ’19, International Relations and History Dual Major
This summer, I spent 10 weeks as a marketing intern at Duff & Phelps. This winter, I spent what felt like 10 weeks researching and applying for internships. I networked using LinkedIn, Claremont Connect, and family and friends to find out about opportunities for the summer, and ultimately this resulted in two interviews out of about 30 applications. Both interviews resulted in an offer, but I chose Duff & Phelps because the company advises on mergers and acquisitions, consults, and performs other financial services, which are related to my economics major and are potential career paths. I found the opportunity to be a marketing intern to be very valuable because I was able to interact with and learn about deals that were going on around the company, not just in one service. Commuting into New York City every day and working a 9-5 plus job was an eye opening experience that I think will be very helpful in preparing me for life after college.
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Katie Hill ’18, Government and Economics Major
I spent my summer in Washington, D.C., interning with the Executive Secretariat Office of the Secretary in the Department of Commerce. As a government and economics major, Washington was somewhere I knew I wanted to be, especially as the election heated up. Professor Pitney regularly updates students on jobs in Washington, D.C., that are looking for interns and accepting applications. It was through his internship newsletter that I came across the internship at Commerce and decided to apply. Working at the Department of Commerce was a great opportunity to see the intersection of public policy with economics and trade. Not to mention, there was no shortage of fellow CMCers in Washington, so I stayed in touch with my roots!
As an intern, I was exposed to the Department’s responsibilities in the areas of trade, technology, entrepreneurship, economic development, environmental stewardship, and statistical research and analysis. I reviewed documents for quality control; assisted in editing and preparing both the weekly cabinet report to the President and the weekly reports to the Secretary; managed and tracked the amount of material the Secretary receives on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis; assisted in managing the briefing book for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Commerce; and tracked news regarding the companies, countries, and people of importance to Commerce.
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Kennedy Holland ’17, Biology Major
I spent this summer camping on Gil Island, a very remote island in northern British Columbia, while working for a research facility called Cetacea Lab. With large humpback whale, fin whale, and orca populations in the surrounding waters, Cetacea Lab is ideally located for data collection and analysis on the behaviors of these creatures. I assisted in land and vessel-based marine mammal surveys, whale identification work, and data entry and review. Humpback whales use the northern waters as their summer feeding grounds, and I was able to learn a tremendous amount on the species through many hours of observation. It was an unbelievable experience full of countless amazing whale encounters! I will never forget this summer of doing what I love every single day. When I started looking for an internship for this summer, I focused on finding a job where I could spend most of my time outside. I was lucky enough to learn about intern positions at Cetacea Lab from a marine mammal job email list I subscribe to, and even luckier to have been hired!
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Blake Lapin ’19, English and Philosophy, Politics and Economics Dual Major
I spent my summer writing short stories and working as a busboy. I received the Appel Fellowship, sponsored by the Writing Center for Public Discourse. I knew I wanted to stay home for the summer so I was pleased to be sponsored to work on a creative project. I plan to be a literature major and I’m deciding if I want to pursue creative writing so it has been a wonderful opportunity. Figuring out how to block out time for a creative venture has been a challenge, but a week into summer, I realized I had to start calling it work to validate spending time in the house. And it is work; I spend hours on my stories. I’m used to writing poetry but this has been a great opportunity to expand my arsenal. I have been a part of two writing workshops in New York City, one from Gotham Writers and another hosted by Sackett Street Writers.
As a student who has grown up in a bubble of private school I need to actively try and break free. It’s easy to fall into the habit of taking internships every summer to resume build. It’s understandably encouraged. But, so few young adults have that opportunity. Most work minimum wage jobs in high school and college, either because that’s the opportunity they have access to or because they need to make money and unpaid internships won’t provide. I feel privileged to work as a busboy, because I get to learn about what it’s like to work a minimum wage job. The kitchen is full of three languages: Spanish, Chinese, and English. I’ve talked to my co-workers about what it’s like to move from Honduras and Chile and be first generation Americans. I understand what it’s like to have a job but not be able to get enough shifts.
But it’s also been nice to be with my family, go on spontaneous trips, and create my day’s structure. The fun has been mixed with critical thought, but the critique has made it all the more valuable.
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Elaine Sohng ’17, Philosophy and Religious Studies Dual Major
This summer I interned in the International Division at JSI, a public health research and consulting firm that specializes in health systems strengthening and community-based approaches to international development. As an intern, I helped support projects addressing HIV/AIDS in Zambia, improved data quality and accuracy in Mozambique, and encouraged community-based newborn care in Ethiopia. The summer is a busy season for new business opportunities, so our office was busy with proposals from different U.S. and international government agencies, foundations, and UN agencies. Every day was a new adventure and because JSI supports a culture of constant learning, I was exposed to so many different facets of international development from so many different angles. I contributed to research on HIV and non-communicable disease care and treatment models and created a data visualization tool for health workers who have limited numeracy in Timor-Leste!
This summer was incredibly rewarding and I'm thankful for the strong alumni network at CMC that introduced me to this internship. While I was abroad in Madagascar, I reached out to an alumna who had worked in the area! She was kind enough to help me focus my interests and reach out to firms that fit my interests. International development can be a tricky field to enter, but I now have several mentors to reach out to for advice as I navigate my last year at CMC and prepare for the next chapter!
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Michael Scarlett '18, Economics & Engineering and Philosophy Dual Major
As a 3-2 economics and engineering major, I have plenty of academic requirements. When I decided to take summer school to ensure I could continue with this program, I also realized that I wouldn’t be able to do a traditional 12-week internship. So, I got creative. The past year I had become fascinated with the outdoors from numerous visits to National Parks and other preserved lands. I wanted to visit more of these spots and understand what makes them so special. Starting in my hometown of Irvine, Calif., I embarked on a cross-country road trip through seven National Parks and several other preserved lands, eventually ending up in Boston, Mass., at Tufts University for a 6-week summer school session (which was a great experience in itself). On the way back I took a detour into Canada visiting a few of their Provincial Parks and returned to the States to stop at an additional seven National Parks before arriving back in Irvine. This road trip wasn’t merely for fun. As I recap on my experience and conduct further research into each park, I am writing a report entitled The Road to Preservation: National Park Edition. It will touch on why each park is unique, how they have been preserved for excellence, and how we can continue to take part in preserving them for generations to come. This trip solidified my passion for the outdoors and gave me tangible ways I can get involved in and work to improve how we preserve our nation’s greatest treasures.
As a Robert Day Scholar, I had access to money for experiential learning opportunities which I used to pay for the cost of gas and other expenses along the way.
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Isabella Speciale ’17, Government and Religious Studies Dual Major
I spent this summer working at Orsi Public Relations, a boutique PR firm in West Hollywood founded by CMC Parent Janet Orsi Shuman P’19. In an incredible series of events and conversations I was reintroduced to Ms. Orsi through KK Streator P’18 (who is also a friend of my dad, Mark Speciale ’81)—proving the true value of both the parent and alumni networks! With clients ranging from Tommy Bahama to Sanrio/Hello Kitty, this internship gave me the opportunity to learn about an industry that I was previously unfamiliar with by interacting daily with major international fashion and lifestyle companies.
With less than 8 full-time employees at Orsi, this was an incredibly hands-on internship and a perfect introduction to a career in PR. I was able to write and submit press releases, compose media alerts and pitches, learn how to operate critical PR software, actively work on events to completion that were covered nationally in the media, communicate with and research critical fashion and lifestyle media influencers to generate client coverage, and much more. This was truly a life-changing internship—teaching me valuable lessons about who I want to be professionally and where my interests lie. I am so appreciative of both the alumni and parent networks for the critical role they played in helping me discover new creative passions, and the whole Orsi team for taking a chance on the government and religious studies major who wanted to work in PR!
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Campbell Streator '18, Government and International Relations Dual Major
I spent the summer working as a junior research assistant at Public Opinion Strategies (POS), a national political and public affairs research firm based in Washington, D.C. I was part of a team that specializes in polling for political races, and had the opportunity to do work on campaigns ranging from gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races to state legislature seats around the country. While I had been planning to spend the summer in Washington from the start, I never gave polling much thought until I realized it might an interesting experience going into an election year. I reached out to POS through a family friend, and spoke to CMC alumnus Max Mullen ’12 about his experience as an intern before accepting the job.
Over the summer I really enjoyed being at the forefront of the election cycle, working with experts in the field on information that can and does swing races up and down the political ticket. For example, one of our clients scored a major upset by unseating the incumbent in a Congressional primary after our earliest polls showed him down by 40 points—a feat that less than one percent of all challengers have pulled off since 1970.
I am participating in the CMC Washington Program, and will be staying on at POS through the election.
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