While many Notre Dame students spend the summer completing professional and volunteering opportunities far from campus, many of these students do so through the help of Notre Dame programs and funding, enabling them to travel to different continents to pursue their interests.
Along with many Notre Dame students that work and study abroad within the summer months, Grace Fuchs, a rising sophomore, participated in service through a summer program run though Notre Dame.
“This summer I was part of Serving in Europe through Nanovic and I worked with Caritas Malta. Caritas is an international non-government organization in Malta; they focus primarily on providing addiction services,“ Fuchs said.
Serving Europe, a program run by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, engages students in pressing social issues in Europe. Fuchs said it provides a great volunteer and exploratory balance.
“Me and my partner spent the summer helping in their homeless shelter, creating a publishable version of their annual report and assisting with their drug rehabilitation graduation and cannabis awareness campaign,” Fuchs said.
Looking back at the experience of working with the Nanovic Institute, Fuchs expressed that the primary objective of the program is to provide students with opportunities to become immersed within their communities in a comfortable and safe environment.
“Essentially [Nanovic] provides housing and funding so that we may serve a community in Europe and immerse ourselves in a different culture. The focus is on seeing and helping the vulnerable, so we had a semester-long course where they taught us more about the Catholic way to serve vulnerable communities and how we could best support our host organization,” Fuchs said.
The Meruelo Family Center for Career Development provides students with professional experiences and direct guidance on acquiring summer internships. They aim to provide year-round help to Notre Dame students while allowing them to pursue their interests and personalize their experiences.
Laura Bellis, the director of employer and regional engagement within the leadership team for the Meruelo Center expressed that the staff at Notre Dame are a valuable asset to students even when exploring summer professional development.
“Advisors are available to students throughout the summer for resume reviews, mock interviews and career advice. What sometimes gets overlooked is advice on how to document their summer experience, whether that is an internship, study abroad program or other continued learning,” Bellis said.
Bellis said that their team works very hard to promote one-on-one help and grant students as much open access to professional opportunities as possible.
“The Meruelo Family Center for Career Development offers tailored approaches to best suit the needs of all students. These include tailored emails about events, internships and jobs based on the interests of students, networking opportunities with employers from a variety of industries, one-on-one career advising sessions to receive individualized feedback and guidance and workshops and learning labs to develop key skills,” Bellis said.
Ryan Willerton, associate vice president for career and professional development at Notre Dame, said that the career center aims to heavily incorporate analytics and data-driven improvements for student summer opportunities.
“Historically, about 85% of students will participate in an internship or research experience during their time at Notre Dame. Our goal is to ensure every student has the opportunity to participate in an internship or other meaningful experience over the summer,“ Willerton wrote in an email to The Observer.
Each year, the center surveys students about their summer experiences, compiling data about how students spend their time.
Willerton explained that the data is used to compile the Summer Experience Database and Summer Experience Networking Directory.
“These resources provide timely insights to inspire students to pursue a variety of summer experiences and make personal connections with classmates to learn about their internships,” Willerton wrote.
He also said that the career center aims to assist students financially through their summer internships rather than simply helping students acquire jobs.
“One of our signature programs is our Summer Internship Funding program. Thanks to the generous University benefactors, we manage more $500,000 to allocate to students who are participating in unpaid or low-paying internships to help them offset travel, lodging, and food costs so that we can ensure every Notre Dame student is financially able to participate in at least one summer internship,“ Willerton wrote. “This past summer, 241 students received funding. The summer funding program is a hidden gem that many students are not aware of.“
