A summer internship can be a valuable tool for college students to gain real-world experience in their desired fields and put summer downtime to good use, but the complications of how and when to apply can seem intimidating.

Blake Winchell, the associate director for student services at the Olinde Career Center, said the process is not nearly as difficult as many students think. Every career field is different in what they expect out of a potential intern and when they expect it, but Winchell said there are some things that are helpful no matter what, such as thinking ahead.

“We want to be aware of what’s going on around us. So a little bit of pre-planning and not just thinking, ‘Hey, schools over in May; I’ll start looking for a summer job in May, like I’ve done before,’” said Winchell. “Being aware of what the timeline is for your industry in your field is important.”

Winchell said forethought is more important to securing an internship than other, more mundane summer jobs such as lifeguarding or manning the register at a grocery store. Rather than hiring to fill a vacancy, companies often plan out how many interns they’ll take on in a summer well in advance, he said, meaning they start the hiring process much sooner.

Within that broad-strokes piece of advice, Winchell stressed the amount of variety between different job fields. He said things like engineering, finance and accounting jobs often get arranged in the early fall semester, but students in the humanities typically lock down summer internships in the early spring.

Starting early was also the biggest piece of advice that rising civil engineering junior Jacob Hartley could offer. Hartley began interning for the Forte & Tablata engineering firm after his freshman year of college and is now spending his second college summer with them. He encouraged any curious freshman to break away from the mindset that internships are only for the back half of a college career.

“With my job, we look for freshmen and sophomores to train. They would prefer you be younger in engineering, because you’ll have like the next four years with them,” he said.

Hartley thinks an added benefit of getting on the interning horse early is the ability to see how working a specific job makes you feel. As an incoming freshman, he was unsure if civil engineering was the right career path for him. He said his two summers working with engineers cleared that cloud of confusion and assured him of his choice.

To secure his spot at the firm, Hartley said he emailed the human resources representatives of each company he had an eye on with an inquiry about available positions and an attached resume. He said he prefers reaching out directly over job-finder websites like Handshake or LinkedIn because it shows more initiative.

“It shows you took the time to seek out their hiring process,” Hartley said.

Lailah Williams, a rising junior majoring in political science and international studies, also applied for her internship directly through a company website. She works for Grassroots Analytics, a political tech company based in Washington D.C. She said she first encountered the company while working as a finance manager for a house representative campaign.

As a mobile fundraising intern, Williams works to create the political texts that are sent out en masse by various campaigns. She said while the job doesn’t line up perfectly with what she wants out of a career, the connections that come from it are more than worth it.

“Working in politics, especially in Washington, is all about who you know, who you’ve come in contact with and who you stay in touch with,” Williams said. “Being able to meet people who have very close connections to folks in Washington as well as outside of Washington, people who are trying to get into the political space has been such a good experience.”

For rising screen printing junior Mason Wulff, personal connections led directly to a summer apprenticeship under master printer Frances Swigart. Wulff said his parents and Swigart have the same accountant, who put the two parties in touch after the Wulff’s told him about their artist son.

As Swigart’s apprentice, Wulff has access to her studio space and knowledge; he said both are invaluable. He said he works in the studio every weekday and expects many of the skills and techniques he’s honing this summer to be beneficial to his college career.

“I’m also a lot more confident with copper and intaglio now. I think in advanced printmaking, which I’m taking next semester, that’s like, the entirety of the course. It’s only etching,” said Wulff. “I feel very prepared.”

Internships don’t always have to be about specializing and perfecting a single craft; they can also be a chance to diversify your skillset and branch out. Rising mass communication junior Christin Ransome said the wide variety of responsibilities attached to her marketing internship for the Keogh Cox law firm has kept the job interesting while teaching her lots of new skills.

“And it’s also just kind of showing me that there are a lot of different roles within the internship. Not only am I doing promo gifts for clients, but I also might be planning an event for the firm,” Ransome said. “It’s a lot of responsibilities, but it’s also fun because I get to multitask, and every day is different.”

Ransome said she learned about the internship through an ad on her sorority’s Facebook page and sent an application directly to the firm shortly after. She said she initially applied to be a document manager for the firm but was offered a marketing position after she told her interviewer that she was in school for communications. Ransome said being able to switch gears and go a different route is a skill she’ll value throughout the rest of her career.

“What you’re going to end up doing probably isn’t what you expect,” Ransome said.