I am Caira Young, currently a sophomore in my second semester at Whitman College. My intended major is Economics and I am on track to major in Rhetoric as well. I will be graduating in the year 2023 and until then, want to explore opportunities that I find interesting. I have been interning for WestPac Wealth Partners in Las Vegas, NV, since last semester. The reason why I decided to choose this internship as a Broker at WestPac was because I wanted to explore my interests early on in my college career so that when I graduate I have more
certainty as to what I want to do next. As an economics major, I am able to learn about different financial markets and things of that nature so interning at a financial institution was a no brainer. I had a set of goals planned out when I initially started my internship because I wanted to make this a valuable experience and learn as much about the business world as possible. Thus far, I have been able to learn tremendously about a wide variety of financial aspects such as retirement and savings accounts, anti money laundering, business strategies, insurance, etc. I have gained so much knowledge about important aspects of finances and life in general that I did not even know to think about. I feel as though now I am ahead in certain areas because not only am I aware, I am taking steps towards having things in place that will better my life greatly. For instance, I have officially set up my Roth IRA. The best times to contribute to this account is while you are at a young age because when you get older and make money consistently from your profession, there are more restrictions as to how much money you can put into this account. Therefore, if I did not learn about this till later in life, it would have been a missed opportunity. This example is only one way in which this internship has impacted my life positively. I initially thought that one of my main takeaways from this would be the knowledge of whether or not I wanted to pursue a career in this after graduating from college. Not only do I have more clarity as to what field I want to go into after undergrad, I learned valuable lessons about finances and business that I was then able to apply to my life in various ways. In addition, my professional network has grown since interning at WestPac which will be helpful in the future. I feel very content with all that I have learned and accomplished during this internship. I look forward to what else I will gain from this internship before it ends.
Experiences like Caira’s are made possible by the Whitman Internship Grant, which provides funding for students to participate in unpaid internships at nonprofit, some for-profit, and government organizations. We are happy to be sharing blog posts from students who were supported by either a summer, fall, spring, or year-long grants at organizations, businesses, and research labs all around the world. To learn how you could secure a Whitman Internship Grant or host a Whitman intern at your organization, send an email to Assistant Director for Internship Programs, Mitzy Rodriguez