The Guidebook To Securing High Profile Internships

Why Should You Trust Me?

THIS BOOK ISN'T A TRADITIONAL how to guide because most of those tend to prey on the pockets of innocent people seeking guidance.  The experiences in this book are my truth and to verify that, you can search my name on LinkedIn or Google.

As far as my own accolades go, I have interned with quite a few big names including: Facebook, UPS, Stitch Fix, Google, CNBC, and Bonjoro (An Australian based company). I am a published co-author in the field of Social Computing on my work titled Encounter Opportunity Browsing,  under the distribution of  ACM (The Association for Computing Machinery).   I pitched my small-business, Dalvin Digital Design, during Newark Tech Week and won free office space for a month sponsored by Equal Space, a tech co-working company located in Newark, New Jersey. Therefore, as you are reading through, please keep in mind that I have been there and done that. My mission here is to help you to also be there and do that for yourself.

What Will This Help You With?

MY GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY internships and show you what it felt like trying to navigate the obscure entity that is called Corporate America. Thankfully,help came from mentors, friends, and advocates along the way, but once you are in that interview room, it's all about you. No one else can interview for you or prove how good your skills are.

To use this book to its fullest extent, I will separate the chapters into two parts. The first being What ‘I’ Did, which will be an anecdote about my life and experience. The second being, What You Can Do, which are key takeaways and practical tips you can use to refer back to. Lastly, certain sections will have a Dalvin’s Challenge where you can jot down some thoughts and reflect using the instructions found before the Acknowledgment section.

Why Are Internships Important?

INTERNSHIPS ARE IMPORTANT because they help you figure out what you want to do and what you don't want to do before you start your first role in your career after graduation. Being that there is a big difference between a job and a career. A job is when you are simply completing a task to make money. While on the other hand, a career is your passion and life purpose, where the side effect is being paid while doing it.

The worst thing is to pick a major, graduate from college, obtain a job in your field, and hate the role within the first few months. This could have been partially avoided by getting the most amount of experience as possible before you left those college doors. Because, once you graduate and those student loans begin piling up, pivoting jobs can be hard because you can't, Find yourself, when Sallie Mae is knocking at your door asking for her cut of your check.

Each internship I have brought me closer to figuring out what I like and dislike in my industry. When you are interviewing for your dream career or with your dream company, it is equally important that you find out what in that company you like, then the company to see if you are a worthwhile candidate and culture fit.

The more experiences you have with other companies, the less nonsense you are willing to compromise on from companies that don't really meet your standards and undervalue you. But you can only have that kind of courage and clarity with experience under your belt. Without this experience, some companies may look at you sideways when you try to negotiate for starting salaries, benefits, etc. because you have nothing to show for it.

Do I Need College For Internships?

AT THE TIME OF WRITING this book, there is a shift in thought on how companies select students for internships and provide full-time employment. Many do not really require a college degree anymore. There is a shift in paradigm that if you can perform at the ability the company requires it does not matter if you have a degree or not. On the flip side, being a person of color, I know I have to take that advice with a grain of salt, I still have to work twice as hard as my counterparts just to get the same job. Experience is king in the workforce, so it is important that you set yourself up to get as much experience as you can whether you do go to college, or not.

To be quite honest, I cannot lie and tell people to go to school, knowing that everything I learned in school can be found on YouTube or another online resource. Especially for technology degrees like IT or Computer Science. I cannot speak on degrees like being a Doctor or Teacher, because I wouldn't want someone operating on me who took a class off YouTube.

But to keep it 100%, many of the opportunities and experiences I have gained was because I was at a four-year institution. I am torn though because, on one hand, the only person that could take a hold of all these opportunities was myself, which meant that I could get my internships from the beginning. But, many of the skills and things I learned were from the people and relationships that I cultivated while being at school. This is just something to keep in mind as you scrutinize the internal struggle between what I learned at school versus what I learned through my own drive and determination.

Who Am I?

I WAS BORN DALVIN JOSIAS, son of two Haitian Citizens, who lived in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. My mother was a school teacher and my father worked at the Embassy of Haiti, helping people get their green cards and starting new lives in other countries. Apparently, my father wasn't too much of a fan of the United States and wanted me to be born in Canada, but my mother wanted me to be born in the United States. She knew if I was born in the U.S. I would have access to many resources, courtesy of being an American Citizen. So after much nudging and persuasion from other family members, my father finally budged and sent my mother on the next flight to Brooklyn, New York so that I can be born there. Unfortunately, they would not see me make it to my zenith, because a few months after my birth, my parents’ lives were cut short.

My siblings stayed in Haiti for a while because they were not U.S. Citizens, like I was. I was able to be taken out of Haiti expeditiously and begin to live life with my Aunt Resilia and Uncle St. Jacques Sejour. This is how I made my exodus out of Haiti and began to live in, The land of the free and the home of the brave.

My Aunt and Uncle just finished moving from Brooklyn, New York, which was actually the first apartment I visited after my birth, to a new location, Irvington, New Jersey where I would spend the duration of my childhood. Immigrants themselves, my aunt and uncle believed in hard work paying off. My Aunt was a hairdresser and nurse, my uncle a custodian, plumber, electrician, and barber. They both worked tooth and nail to help give me a comfortable life. They gathered their money together and were able to help pay for my siblings legal fees for them to come live in the United States a few years after I left. After a while, they got legal custody of me, giving me an additional last name, Dalvin Josias Sejour. On the surface, it made it easier for me to attend school and help with the legal process here in the States under their guardianship. On a deeper level, it meant transitioning into my new identity as an American citizen as I began to live my new life in this country.

Irvington, New Jersey is your typical inner city environment. Food deserts everywhere, underachieving schools, and unwarranted violence.  However, I would call this place home and have my best memories here. Even with all these negative factors stacked up against me my new parents had a strong foundation to help keep my siblings and I stay grounded. They believed in the institutes of the church, school, and home as a way to cope and endure with the environment they lived in. These three pillars are essentially the foundation of any traditional Haitian household.

In our culture, the church always comes first. My parents were Baptist Christians, so they believed through God anything and everything came through Him. This involved me spending endless hours at church on Sundays and throughout the week. I would go to bible study, choir rehearsal, and even went to school with some of the kids from church. Most of the friends I met there would go on to become my lifelong friends. All of our parents were immigrants from Haiti, which made our bond much stronger.

Second to God was school. Haitians believed through education anything could be achieved under the sun. Anything less than Super Honor Roll was unacceptable in my house. My uncle used to cut deals with me, offering to get me the latest gaming system or money if I got good grades. This is when I began to learn the concepts of Hard work pays off, as cliché as it may seem. I learned the value of a dollar because I usually worked hard for it in school. I would  zip through my school work in an instant because I loved to learn early on, which is one of my