Student Blog Post: How the NetImpact club conference helped me land an internship

The Career-Focused Clubs at Darden host events throughout the year to assist in the career-related activities of the students.   Laura Durity, Class of 2013, shares how she leveraged a club event in her internship search:

Laura Durity
Class of 2013

In February of last year, as a first year student, I attended Darden’s NetImpact conference. I had no idea that my attendance at this conference would ultimately lead to a summer internship. It was a sunny, beautiful Friday in Charlottesville, but the panelists were intriguing and I suspected (correctly) they would provide numerous networking opportunities.

I sat in on a range of panels covering such topics as renewable energy investment and the use of business principles to transform government. At one panel, I met a Darden alumnus who is a former investment banker and current senior manager at the Federal Reserve Board. He discussed his role in monitoring investment banks’ trades and creating policy to enhance financial stability. As I am a practicing attorney with a strong interest in the intersection of law, business and government, I found his job fascinating.

Following the panel, I tracked him down to ask if the Federal Reserve hires MBA summer interns. I was interested in working on the types of projects he mentioned in his presentation over the summer; it was a hybrid business-legal role that fit my interests well! With his help and guidance, I landed a summer internship in an elite group at the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation in Washington, DC analyzing and drafting critical banking regulations.

To learn more about opportunities to attend these Club Conferences, please go to our Visiting Darden webpage.  In addition to the Career-Focused Clubs, prospective students are invited to the Graduate Women in Business Conference on Friday, 5 October.  For details and to register, please see the GWIB Conference blog post.