Applying for internships through YouthHack as a college student? - #DearTBC
I like ask.fm because it's a simple, anonymous way to get questions which remind me that not everyone thinks the same way as me. Like on the purpose of YouthHack. Answering these questions often forces me to broaden my perspective on topics I already have a solid opinion on.
Normally, I wouldn't think twice about say, email subject lines or paid vs unpaid internships, but when a question about it pops into the ask.fm, I have to actually look at as many possible answers to the question before choosing my answer. While still detailing the other answers.
That being said, this is the first time ever that I have done a rant answer (and in video form) to a question we got on www.ask.fm/thebordercollective.
A little back story, Youthhack is like an NGO, that's dedicated to giving opportunities for high schoolers willing to take them. They are young kids (to my 21-year-old-self) who work extremely hard to make things happen for younger kids, so that the younger ones get more opportunities than the young kids did when they were at that age.
It's confusing, but just look through their Facebook page, and it'll make more sense. The reason I went on this rant, is because entitlement is such a tiring thing to face. And like I said in the video, I quit posting on the blog for a while because of that entitlement.
It's interesting, coming into contact with people who think very differently from me. I am reminded always that writing this blog, putting all this information out there, it's a crutch for people.
And that's not always a good thing.
People tend to rely on this information without thinking about whether or not they can make it on their own, and that worries me.
I don't want people to take TBC as the bible of getting a job; I want them to see it as a helping hand, a friend telling them something extra that could get them further, an insider secret.
To the person who asked that question, I hope you take what I said in the vid to heart. There's no harm in failing. The biggest harm is failing constantly because you're doing the same thing over and over again hoping it'll be a hit somewhere. Constantly change what you're doing, even just a little bit, so that both it and you improve. That's been my motto these past few years. And I think I've done pretty okay.
Or you could just completely ignore me and carry on with your life. I'm fine with that too. At the end of the day, we are the captains of our own ships, and we must make decisions we can sleep with.
Related: Help, my org work doesn’t match up against my batchmates – #DearTBC
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to my vlog, where I am continuing the Internship FAQs from my blog, The Border Collective, only in video form because it’s a lot easier to talk to the camera than it is to write. This is not appropriate a work attire guys. But before anything else, let’s just read the question now.
“Why does YouthHack only help high school students? Can’t I get an internship through them as a late-bloomer college student? Parang ang biased naman kasi, and I don’t have high expectations, even as a college student, doing something made for high school students. I don’t demand a lot”
So, my answer to the question is I think the purpose of YouthHack is to help children.
When you’re in high school, you know nothing. You are a kid. You are not expected to know anything. Most people like to enjoy the high school life. I enjoyed mine very much. I miss the days I did absolutely nothing but watched TV.
YouthHack is helping out high schoolers, especially those high schoolers who want to get an internship. And you get that by partnering with startups which are small companies.
They’re generally small startups who haven’t really made it yet. Or if they have, they’re still in the process of requiring so much manpower to just to do all the operations. But they can’t afford to actually hire people full-time, so they're going to outsource all the simpler task to their interns which is why they want to get high schoolers.
People who hopefully have critical thinking.
I feel like high schoolers today are a lot smarter than when I was in high school. I don’t know. My greatest basis as high schoolers is my own little sister who just graduated high school and when I look at her, I just have no comment for high schoolers, if they are anything like her.
To the person who wrote this, I feel like, this is kinda entitled, I get it.
We’re all entitled, I’m gonna be the first one to say that. I think I am a super spoiled brat and big complainer. I don’t like it when I have to touch other people. I don't like the whole paying my dues kind of idea.
My thing is, I think you can apply through YouthHack to find these internships. But they are gonna prioritize high schoolers, because YouthHack is created to help high schoolers.
I get it, you want them to place an internship too – but you are a college student. You should be able to do this. I’m assuming you hit 18 at some point in your college life. Most people hit 18 before they graduate at least.
You should be able to do really basic things like preparing your own resume and send it out there to companies looking for an internship. I mean there’s a career fair at school, you should be utilizing that even though I specifically think that a career fair is a huge like catch-all, for the companies but it’s not a very good use of your time as an applicant. You’ll become 1 out of 1000. So, you have to stand out.
But because you are a college student, it is kind of expected that you are able to do things by yourself. Or if ever, you have the initiative to go and find resources to go into just by yourself.
That’s why you're on The Border Collective after all, you have the initiative to click a link and find out that there’s a blog dedicated to interning and resumes and careers for Filipino college students of today.
Really sorry to the asker but you’re not going to get a lot of sympathy for me and I'm the last person to ask for sympathy from.
I’m a huge proponent of going out and just trying for things and for failing at them. So, for you to want to do it easier out.
I don’t know, I’m just not going to be very sympathetic for that. It doesn’t not mean I’m not completely unsympathetic, I mean after all, I did found The Border Collective which is supposed to make interning easier for the next people.
But I feel like this kind of attitude is part of the reason why I stopped posting around last year, last 2016. Because I was feeling like there’s a lot of entitlement going on. A lot of questions we were getting, a lot of comments we were getting, or “How do you do this? Can you give me the email? Can I say that I was recommended by you?"
You should go, and try and fail at these things yourself.
I get it that you're a late college bloomer, technically I am too, because I don’t think I’ve got the college bloom at all.
After that, I don’t really have sympathy for you and I don’t have advice and I don’t know what you were trying to get at asking me about that because number one, I don’t own YouthHack. Betina doesn't own YouthHack either; she just works for them too.
If you want to complain you should complain to YouthHack's founder. Go find David and complain to him and let's see if he's sympathetic about that.
I'm sure that he won't be too, because this is a resource created for high schoolers so that they're more prepared for college. You're supposed to be prepared, you're supposed to be googling doing your researches at hand.
Actually, there's like a five point list that tells you what's the perfect internship and maybe we'll detail that again in another video.
Tell us in the comments below if you want to know what are the five points you should be looking for in your internship place, location, office, I’m not sure.
To see if that's a good place for you to learn and grow.
Super last, it's not that bad to go out there and fail!! I mean you don’t have to tell other people what you are doing or that you failed. You can just do all this in secret and then if you fail in secret it will be totally okay because it’s just you who knows it. This is all a secret.
In line with that spirit we should to take risks.
We should aim to get ourselves out there and fail and to do things we will be embarrassed about. But in the future, we'll use those as part of our success story.
I succeeded because I failed 27 times but I got up 28 times. I think it’s a Chinese or an Indian proverb. I'm not really sure, I would have to Google that and I am too lazy to do those things now.
For whoever is watching this I will offer you one thing in return. Go to kalibrr.com. K A L I B R R. C O M. Search for internships and then apply there.
Usually people who post over there are looking for interns. They're looking for people fast. Use the resources that are already around us. Go to Jobstreet and look for internships.
Thank you very much for watching. I’m Justine, this is The Border Collective and my vlog at the same time and yeah, I'm going home.
Hi! I’m Justine.
I’m the founder and writer of all things in The Bumpy Career and welcome to #DearTBC, a slot for really specific career-related questions that you’re worrying about, but you’re not quite sure who you can turn to. We answer in-depth so that anyone else who’s never wondered but wants to know, will know what to do next.
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