First Years, Here Comes the Internship Fund!

Executive Summary: First years, please attend the Internship Fund's kick-off meeting on Wednesday September 8th, in A74 (where you regularly meet the awesome Prof. Amy W) at 4:30pm. On the IF, you will support a number of your friends' internships and a remarkable array of wonderful organizations; form enduring relationships with every SOM constituency; and plan the most anticipated events of SOM's social calendar. You will be richer for it both figuratively and, for a great many of you, quite literally!____________________________________ I can point to any number of reasons to explain why my first year at SOM was the most rewarding of my life. Chief among them was the opportunity to work with an incredible team of friends on SOM's vaunted Internship Fund, which weaves together all of the values that make SOM truly unique. Thus the Class of 2011's IF motto: There's No Place Like SOM. The Fund, the first of its kind among business schools, was founded in '79 to provide financial support to students who wanted to work with non-profit, public or (added recently) social enterprise organizations that couldn't afford their services. Since then the Fund has become SOM's proudest tradition, bringing together our entire community with signature events (and among the best parties) throughout the spring term. Along with our sister Food for Thought, the Fund provides the only opportunity for first years to lead critical SOM institutions free from us meddlesome second years. Whether you're a co-chair or a member of the marketing, finance, auction, student or alumni fundraising teams, you will certainly get the opportunity to make one of the earliest and most prominent "Team 2012" stamps on SOM; meet just about every member of your class and a remarkable number of second years; build relationships with alumni leaders; and befriend enthusiastic faculty and staff. You will discover that all of these constituencies are willing to go to astounding (and slightly crazy) lengths to support student internships and the organizations they help, generate funding and bring together our entire community in celebration. In the process you will help many of your friends (there were more than 40 in our year) find the internships of their dreams with inspirational organizations that are successfully tackling the toughest challenges in the world. You will see, as our team did, SOM at its best. You will see our mission come alive. Our class of 2011's sizzling second years raised the bar high with record fundraising, and our class raised it still higher. From the level of leadership and commitment we've already seen from first years, it seems clear that if any class can beat 2011's (our team is proud to say AWESOME) record, it is the class of 2012. So whether you are or want to be a community organizer, a techie, a development diva, a marketing guru, a graphic designer, a financial expert, an event planner, a project manager or much more, please join us tomorrow. Your skills and commitment will be highly appreciated, used and developed if you're a member of the Class of 2012 Internship Fund.