Hispanic Internship and Scholarship Guide

With summer coming up, students with a break between semesters can find themselves wondering what to do with that extra time. Because work experience can sometimes be more important than education, an internship can really pay off in both dollar amounts and resume packing. To learn more about different kinds of internships in your area, check out these sites:

Internships.con -The makers of this site have made it easy for students, employers, and even educators to find what they need. They are currently offering over 72,000 internship positions with over 20,000 companies. You can even use their interactive homepage to ask questions, or you can click on the Answer tab to view the most recent and most viewed questions such as how to get the internship you really want or even what an intern’s duties are during White Elephant.

After College - You don’t have to be graduating from college to take advantage of this site. It also features over 20,000 employers looking to hire interns or students. In addition, the site also has contributed over $400,000 to scholarships and student activities.

Internship Programs – Want to know what the top ten current internships are? Then visit this site to check them out. They currently include an entertainment marketing and PR job, one with a funky professional atmosphere, and a marketing development internship. You can also browse by newest added, by employer, location, and field.

Intern Match – If you think an internship job placement site should work more like a dating site, click here. You can start browsing by field and location, as well as check out featured internships with employers such as Sirius XM. One of their biggest areas of focus is internships in the information technology field. There are also tons of resources for students including help with cover letters, resumes, and a blog with more.

USA Jobs studentsandgrads – If you want to intern on a public level, stop here. The site has tons of intern and student jobs for those still in school or who have just graduated. The Pathways Programs offers a clear path to Federal internships for students from high school through post-graduate school and provide meaningful training and career development opportunities for individuals who are at the beginning of their Federal service. Visitors can chose from the internship program, recent graduates program, and a Presidential Management Fellows Program.

It isn’t just for alleged Nigerian princes, scholarships and those seeking them can often be subject to scamming.  Tons of sites and individuals look for students and families to prey off of and can do so in many different ways.  In order to best protect yourself from this type of fraud, have a look at these five common ways to spot a scholarship scam.

1. Fees for matching – Often naïve students and their families can be subject to the fee scam.  These scammers often phone or email promising to match you with scholarships that fit your needs and can even guarantee that you will win one.  All you have to do is pay a sum up front.  With many sites offering scholarship matches for free, stay away from anyone who talks about fees for scholarships.
2. Scholarships with application fees – You often have to pay a fee when applying for a car or an apartment, so why shouldn’t that hold true for a scholarship?  It is because these kinds of scholarships are a scam and illegal.  Legitimate scholarships never require an application or any other fee up front or ever.  If you have to pay to apply for a scholarship, stay away.
3. “Congratulations, you’ve been awarded a BLANK scholarship” – These and similar words are what accompanies this scholarship scam.  Phishers, hackers, and more can get your information any number of ways and send you an email telling you that you have won a scholarship.  All you have to do is pay an upfront fee for processing and such.  Much like the Nigerian lottery scam, stay away from it.  Know which scholarships you apply for.  They will often send an official letter or even call you to let you know if you’ve won and won’t require any fees for processing.
4. Financial Aid services – While these can be useful and are not always a scam, they should be avoided.  These services often offer to help you with financial aid forms, scholarship applications, and more for a fee.  While the services can be legitimate, they can also be found for free in many other ways.  There are tons of sites online that can help you with forms, such as the FAFSA, that can be found with a simple internet search.  If you need more help than that, the financial aid offices of your current, future, or prospective school were established for the sole purpose of helping students who are confused by the applications process.
5. No guarantees – If a scholarship is advertised as guaranteed, stay away.  Even if it is free to apply, they can often use any information you give them in all sorts of ways.  Just keep to the old rule of “if it’s too good to be true” alive in your search for legitimate scholarships.

Have a scholarship in your sights that would suit you and your academic needs?  Chances are they require an essay written by you on why you need and deserve the scholarship.  If writing isn’t your thing – or even if it is – there is a certain method to writing an essay for a scholarship that you should know.  Check out the below five steps to learn more.

1. Know the requirements – It might sound obvious, but many scholarship offices are flooded with applications, many of which can be filled out incorrectly.  Before you put a drop of ink to paper or hit that first key on the board, make sure you are clear on items such as word count, content, and even writing style to stay out of the instant reject pile.
2. Choose your topic – Now that you know how long your essay has to be, know and choose your topic.  While some scholarship essays have specific topics, such as listing any achievements you’ve made up to this point, others can be more broad, such as where you see yourself in ten years.  While it can be tempting to just start writing, coming up with several ideas for a topic, then choosing the one that you think is best, can really make your essay stand out.
3. Research – Writers always say you should know your audience, and that holds true for your scholarship essay as well.  In this case, your audience is the entity awarding the scholarship whether it is a foundation, non-profit organization, or even the school itself.  A must-do includes visiting the site of whoever is awarding the scholarship to see what they value most.  In addition to their values, using their terminology makes it easier for them to read, understand, and approve of.  So for example if the motto of the foundation awarding the scholarship is “building the future,” be sure and use the words generously throughout.
4. No negatives – Although you may come from a rough life and have a deep financial need for a scholarship, it does not help to be a “downer” in your scholarship essay.  Find creative ways to say that your parents don’t have money for school, your neighborhood is rough, or that this scholarship is the only way you can pay for school.  Instead, discuss how supportive your family is, that you are the first in your family or one of the few neighborhoods to attend college, and how dedicated you are to finding a way to pay for your education.
5. Revise – You or your parents might think the essay is perfect, but it can be riddled with errors you are not even aware of.   With so many other essays to sift through, it can be easy for the people awarding the scholarship to put yours in the reject pile for not being right.  Once you have your essay as far as you can take it, now is the time to call on your teachers, counselors, and others to read and edit your essay.