Summer internships are an excellent opportunity for students at the Fox School to apply business knowledge, build professional connections and jumpstart their careers. But applying to different internships can seem like a daunting task—students need to know where to look to find internships, how to prepare to succeed through multiple stages of interviews and how to effectively adapt to fast-paced work environments.
In this series, four Fox students share their experiences with summer internships in 2022 and provide valuable advice for their peers.
Allyson Grace Yu, UX Project Coordinator Intern at Comcast
Originally a double major in biology and visual studies, Yu’s interest in business grew after completing a marketing internship in her first year at Temple. In her second year, she competed in the Fox School’s Innovative Idea Competition, hosted by the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute, and won the People’s Choice award with her team.
Yu’s experience in the Idea Competition encouraged her to get more involved in business by pursuing a minor at the Fox School. By her junior year, Yu had fully committed herself to a career in business, upgrading her minor to a major in Management Information Systems with an interest in user experience (UX) product design.
Yu, Class of 2023, initially learned about UX internship opportunities at Comcast through a professional connection she had made during a previous internship. After multiple interviews, Yu was offered not one, but two different internship offers at Comcast to choose from!
“In preparing for the interviews, the biggest resource I had was the Center for Student Professional Development (CSPD). I had one advisor, Sarah Yaskowski, that I really looked to for advice; she knew my story and was such a great coach. Being able to practice mock interviews at the CSPD is especially helpful for students like me who haven’t done too many interviews or might be scared.”
Yu is considering a career in UX design after graduation and chose the UX Project Coordinator internship at Comcast to grow her expertise and network. She found the anticipation of wanting to perform well in her new role to be a bit nerve-wracking during the first few days but was able to quickly acclimate to her job because of how kind her team was. She recalls being invited to lunch with her manager and senior director as a gesture that made her feel especially welcome.
As UX project coordinator, Yu worked remotely on a full-time basis. Her role primarily involved assisting the UX team’s program manager (PM) with various tasks, such as reaching out to coordinate projects with PMs of other teams. The internship experience also provided her with ample opportunity to shadow the UX PM, sit in on meetings with UX teams and speak to various UX researchers. It was through these experiences that Yu realized what made an internship so valuable: “Students should explore every resource that a company provides them during the internship. Use the internship experience to learn why companies use specific resources, who within the company uses those resources and how you can also benefit by leveraging those resources.”