It’s Who You Know

-by Kelsey Gohn ’16

I didn’t expect to find my junior year internship so easily given what I had observed from the experiences of my peers, but one of Berger’s partner summer internship programs turned out to be the perfect experience for me. During CMC’s Silicon Valley Program, I was able to connect with a Berger board member in the Bay Area and hear about her experiences both at CMC and with her work in healthcare. She also connected me to her network at Kaiser Permanente; it was great to have Berger in common.

When next summer rolled around, I knew I was going to apply to the Berger Institute’s internship at Kaiser because I had already met several members of the team. It was a great way for me to secure an internship at a company that I wanted to work at, while having the comfort of knowing that it had been vetted by CMC. Midway through the summer, Professor Kanaya met with our supervisor to ensure that we were getting a fantastic experience, and we were able to make a few tweaks so that the second half was even better.

At KP, I was able to work on innovation projects and their annual Bring Your Child to Work Day. I met so many wonderful people who made time to talk with me so I could see the range of full-time opportunities available. So far, this has helped make the transition into the senior year job search go much more smoothly.