When I came to Scripps, I had a three-page resume and could not define “curriculum vitae” or even “business casual.” Fortunately, I never had to implement any of these professional necessities before seeking a heavy dose of TLC from CP&R.

But alas, the time has come to start putting all the skills, documents, and important career information I have built up over the past year to the test. Summer internship season has arrived.

I underwent the gruesome processes of assembling my resume into a single-page document, wrote cover letters, and perused The Gateway, Idealist.org, and Life Connections. But with no definite major and no concrete decision about my future plans, what was I to do next about summer plans?

Never turning down the chance to explore, I attended the Panel on Careers in Writing, Publishing, and Media earlier this month. After speaking with CMC and Scripps alums with experience working in fields I might be interested in pursuing, I connected with them via email and LinkedIn to keep in touch and begin to build my network.

A minor, somewhat comical, digression about LinkedIn: I am new to the professional networking site, and if you are too, I recommend avoiding humiliation by not sending requests to connect to your entire email contacts list… I unwittingly sent invitations to my uncle, the mayor of Claremont, and half of the CP&R office simply because they were in my contacts list. I am now happy to be connected to these people, but be careful and be sure to (intentionally) send personalized requests to anyone with whom you wish to network.

To return to the topic internship searches, my advice is this: never turn down an opportunity or a chance to travel down roads you can potentially see your future heading towards. My resume took its maiden voyage into the professional world when I sent it off to a nonprofit organization that works to create policies regarding environmental protection and restoration. My dad, as an environmental lawyer, works with a man who attended Pomona as an undergraduate student and was excited enough about my status as a Claremont student that he was happy to put me in contact with the organization. After a phone interview, I was offered a position of communications intern. I am still working out the logistics of this opportunity, but the fact remains that I would not have gotten this chance had I not taken all the necessary steps and put myself out there beforehand.

Making sure to have all the basics down is the first most important step, but if it is unclear about where to go from there, sniffing around potentially interesting opportunities almost always turns something exciting up. I was able to secure an opportunity after probing opportunities offered by the panel, LinkedIn connections, and the discussion I had with my dad. At any stage of career searching, an open mind and an assertive willingness to experiment might be all it takes to find an incredible opportunity. Now is the time to say yes to everything… and even to risk making mistakes while they are remediable (and while there are resources like CP&R available to help work with them). So build that network (purposefully and responsibly so as not to annoy every person you know)! Talk to that professor about research opportunities! Attend that lecture! You never know where it might take you.