Hi, my name is Hugh and as all formal introduction begins, here is a short list of my credentials: I am a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an alumni of the People’s Music School and currently, an intern at the People’s Music School.I’ve never written a blog before, and as a student studying engineering and the sciences, I’ve been surrounded by numbers and equations for the last year without a lick of writing, so please bear with me, I’ll get better at this!
I guess first and foremost, I should explain how I got here as an intern for TPMS. At the end of my second semester, I realized it would be my first summer in years where I wouldn’t be taking a summer class and so I began to look for a summer research internship. As a freshman, this proved to be significantly harder than anticipated. Most researchers directly correlate the word ‘freshman’ with ‘inexperienced’. Luckily, with some luck, perseverance and a bit of being a nuisance, I was able to land two opportunities to conduct research (not to mention an email inventory cluttered with sent emails and rejection letters). As I began to speak with the project leads about my position, a conversation about my age arose; unfortunately for me, the only thing worse than being a freshman when looking for an internship is being an underage freshman, 17 to be exact. With the positions being full-time jobs, I found myself out of a summer internship.
Thanks for reading!