Fall 2012 Issue - Colby-Sawyer College

in profile
A Capital Internship
by Kate Dunlop Seamans
16 Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
As she strides along the
sidewalk between the
Washington and Lincoln
Memorials, high heels
clicking, Anh Nguyen ’13
looks like any young
professional living and
working in the nation’s
capital.
“Vice President Joe Biden
came to a fund-raising
event I helped plan, and
I got to meet him. I am
not an American citizen,
so I had to plan ahead and
go through extra security
measures,” says Nguyen, a
Business Administration
major and Wesson Honors
student from Hanoi, Vietnam.
Overhead, another
plane roars into view as it
takes off from Reagan
International Airport. “I’ve
met Senator John McCain,
too, and many generals
and other military
personnel.”
Last fall, Nguyen had
enough credits to graduate
early and begin an M.B.A.
program, but she wanted
to make the most of her
undergraduate opportunities
and study in Europe
for a semester. Then she
spotted a poster for the
Washington Internship
Institute at the Harrington
Center for Career and
Academic Advising, and
the promise of gaining
more professional experience
intrigued her. The
institute is an educational
nonprofit organization that
matches college students
and recent graduates with
semester-long internships
in Washington, D.C.
Colby-Sawyer began an
affiliation with the program
in 2010, and since then 10
students have completed
internships in D.C.
The college’s emphasis
on combining a strong
liberal arts and sciences
foundation with professional
preparation means
that every student must
complete at least one
internship before they
graduate. Harrington
Center surveys show that
43 percent of those
internships lead to job
offers.
Although an internship
with Ameriprise Financial
Services in 2011 fulfilled
Nguyen’s internship
requirement and affirmed
her passion for finance,
she wanted to explore
other aspects of business,
such as marketing, business
development and
event planning. She signed
on with the institute and
secured a position as
a special events intern at
Hayes and Associates, a
public relations firm. In her
first week, Nguyen was
given a cubicle and a list of
VIPs to call and recruit for
event sponsorships.
“It was a challenge
because I was not confident
talking on the phone
with my accent,” Nguyen
explains as she passes
the Martin Luther King Jr.
National Memorial. “My
first few calls were horrible;
people asked me to repeat
myself a lot. I didn’t want
to tell my supervisor I
could not do it, so I went
home and practiced in
front of the mirror. The
next day I did a lot better.”
It wasn’t long before
Nguyen was deeply involved
in planning major
events, from business
development and inviting
the CEOs of Fortune
500 companies, to figuring
out seating and registration
logistics, briefing
speakers and tracking
media coverage. On
her best days, people like
the director of Texas
Instruments and vice
president of Apple
called to accept her
invitations.