Long Island internships are helping these 5 students define their career goals

On Earth Day in April 2022, Jacob Huben joined other employees in an annual corporate tradition: picking up soda cans, plastic water bottles and candy wrappers from a vacant property near his internship at Riverhead Building Supply in Calverton.

The day-long activity didn’t just make Huben proud to work for a company committed to the environment. It was pivotal in driving the Holbrook resident to abandon his plans to seek eventual employment with “a high-profile corporation” in favor of working for a non-profit in the environmental sustainability sector.

“It’s crazy how picking up garbage led to a change in my career path,” said Huben, 24, who is graduating in December from Stony Brook University with a major in business management and a specialization in marketing. This summer, he is interning with the Manhattan-headquartered  Environmental Defense Fund.

College students on Long Island and elsewhere have long devoted their summer vacations, if not an entire year, to internships that can play a meaningful role in not only influencing the direction of their careers but giving them a jump-start in them.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2022 Student Survey, 60% of responding graduating seniors had internships and 46% of those were unpaid. The median length of an internship is 12 weeks, according to the organization’s 2023 Internship & Co-op Report.

Employers, on average, converted 57.6% of their eligible interns to full-time hires, based on NACE’s 2023 Guide to Compensation for Interns & Co-ops. To calculate conversion rates, NACE looks at interns who are "eligible” for converting to full-time employees, that is, were on track to graduate into the workforce from their colleges by June 30.  

The compensation guide found that $21.56 was the average hourly wage for 2022 summer interns. But with compensation generally based on a student’s major, year in school and internship industry, a wide range of internship salaries exists.

Regardless of whether interns received a job offer from their internship firm or another company, paid interns received an average of 1.61 job offers while unpaid interns averaged 0.94 offers. Students who didn’t do an internship received an average of 0.77 job offers, based on NACE’s student survey. Last year, the overall median starting salary for those who had been paid interns was $62,500, versus $42,500 for those who did unpaid internships, the survey found.  

Although a hands-on internship “generally beats” an observational experience in interns’ development, they shouldn’t assume an observational model lacks value, said Robert J. Khoury, co-author with John Selby of "How to Intern Successfully: Insights & Actions to Optimize Your Experience" and founder and CEO of Chicago-headquartered Agile Rainmakers, a business development consulting and advisory firm with an internship program for college students.

A law enforcement internship, for example, that primarily has interns riding around in a police car enables them to see whether they love doing so or are so bored, they “can’t stand it,” Khoury said.  And “sitting in a room and watching a masterful salesperson [in action] can be hugely worthwhile” in learning how to sell, he said.

Huben, along with four other local interns who are working this summer at organizations ranging from Bay Street Theater to Discover Long Island, shared their internship experience and its impact on their career goals.  

Bay Street Theater

At Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, intern Scarlett Diaz, 22, promotes the institution and its productions on social media, including shooting and editing photos and videos, and uploading them onto Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.  

The Cresskill, New Jersey resident, who earned her BFA in musical theater from the University of Miami in the spring, has also used her internship to assist the marketing team in an ad effort that uses search engine optimization key words to reach people with common interests and within common geographic areas.

Diaz, who was a child actress, has a resume abounding with varied theatrical  roles in Broadway national tour, regional and collegiate productions,  including "Rent" and "Shrek." And as she sees it, the internship puts her in a position to advance her career.

Besides being within hours of Manhattan for auditions, the Bay Street gig affords her networking opportunities with theatrical professionals, who also get to observe her collegiality and work ethic, Diaz said, “and I learn from theirs.”

Her digital efforts for Bay Street also give her the online proficiency to promote her own acting career. “If you’re great at social media, you can build up your own personal brand,” she said.

Plus, with show business so competitive, Diaz said, her digital marketing abilities afford her a fallback livelihood.

Long Island Game Farm

An intern at the Long Island Game Farm, Wyatt Skopov-Normane, a Pittsburgh native who moved to Center Moriches, has learned more than a thing or two about goats this summer.

During his $400-a-month-internship,  Skopov-Normane’s duties encompass such tasks as cleaning the animal pens and working the snack bar, as well as tending the goats.

“I have learned what to do and not to do,” including not to hold their milk bottles high during feeding times,  said Skopov-Normane, 18, who grew up with cats and dogs. “The other goats will push each other out of the way and jump on you to get the milk.”

A sophomore at the University of Vermont, he is majoring is environmental science.

Skopov-Normane’s interest in animals motivated him to become a game farm intern, which, he said, is providing him with a foundation for a career working with endangered species in the conservation field.

“This is a great opportunity to gain experience in really getting to know animals and taking care of them,” he said.

Southampton African American Museum

For Kellen Jeffries, a museum internship isn’t only about learning more about the place he calls home. It’s also about finessing his communication skills for a career in media or advertising.

At the Southampton African American Museum, Jeffries, 19, is keen on becoming a tour guide for the public speaking experience that he considers vital to his professional future.

So besides setting up tables and chairs for special museum events and checking the functioning of the museum’s mobile phones and headphones that accompany SAAM’s Digital Tapestry Experience, he is tasked with studying SAAM’s website to learn about the museum’s genesis. And in a future tour of the museum, Jeffries will shadow Brenda Simmons, the organization’s founder and executive director.

The goal is to prepare him to become a museum tour guide,  Simmons said.

“This [will help] me to get my point across in communicating and public speaking,” said Jeffries, who recently completed his first year at the University of Connecticut, where he switched majors, from psychology to communications.

Along with his mother and father, Jeffries was born and bred in Southampton, and the museum brings him back to an earlier period in his own life. One of the museum's exhibits pays tribute to the building’s former occupant, a barber shop, where Jeffries got haircuts, including his very first.

“And now I’m going to tell its story,” he said.

Discover Long Island

As an MBA candidate with a concentration in marketing, Jenny Wu has reams of book knowledge.  And after serving this summer as an intern, Wu will also have gained first-hand knowledge of marketing strategies that can help facilitate her career goals.

“If there’s an opportunity available, I want to move into leadership in digital marketing and e-commerce,” she said.

Since becoming an intern in early June at Discover Long Island, which markets the region as a destination, Wu has helped manage the organization’s e-commerce site, including fulfilling incoming orders, reviewing proofs for new merchandise, such as clothing, mugs and beach towels and, with the creative team, checking the quality of upcoming products and researching new vendors.

“As MBA students, we talk a lot about leadership and networking, and it’s nice to see it in action here  — and how the executive team interacts and collaborates with the rest of the team,” she said.

The Farmingville resident, 23, who earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Albany and will return to Hofstra University for her second — and final — year in the graduate program, is also receiving training in Discover Long Island’s digital content management system, which is key to its destination marketing effort. And by watching the podcast team in action, she is also getting an education in podcasting — from how it works to the results it generates.  

“I’m not only getting experience by doing but also by observing,” she said.

With marketing strategies “always changing,” Wu said, having a foundation in varied selling and branding approaches, as well as gaining an understanding of the metrics they deliver, “will help me become more adaptable to the field’s changes in the future.”

Environmental Defense Fund

For Huben, 24, the Environmental Defense Fund internship dovetails with his keen interest in sustainability issues, and it allows him to use his creativity for the cause.

Huben’s responsibilities encompass creating digital copy, launching ads and reporting on the results, as well as strengthening EDF’s marketing campaigns and its website’s visibility with key words that optimize Google search results.

“I’m learning what works and what doesn’t,” he said, noting that some phrases, such as “extreme weather conditions,” are more apt to attract visitors seeking information on their local forecasts than environmental issues.

Huben was originally a film major — until he concluded that he “wasn’t cut out” for the difficulty in breaking into the competitive profession. But his first “passion project” at EDF has involved crafting a script and using his graphic design skills to create a training video for internal use. Other videos will soon follow on how to advertise on Google and Facebook, he said.

Grace Ingram, Riverhead Building Supply’s director of marketing, said she had encouraged Huben to spread his wings and work the summer before his college graduation in a field  that “he was more interested in and passionate about.” But she had also reassured him that the door was open for him to return to the company as an employee.  

He’s happy he followed her advice.

“Going forward,” Huben said, “I would like to grow and stay with EDF where I can bring my creativity to a field that allows me to combine two different passions — the environment and marketing — to help further one goal: a sustainable environment.”