Berklee Blogs checks in with Naiquisia Hensey,  a music business major wrapping up her internship at Velour Music Group, an artist management company based out of Brooklyn, New York.  Naiquisia lets us in on a few tips she’s learned that can make an intern’s life a lot easier.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm.

If there is one thing that job/internship hunting has taught me, it is that for most positions experience = income. This means that the more experience you have on your resume, the better chance you have at getting hired. Whether you are looking to bartend, waitress, or run Sony, your experience in those fields will get you to the position you want more quickly.

If I were a new student at Berklee, I would find out everything I could about interning in the Boston area while attending school. Understanding basics like office etiquette, word processing, HTML and data entry is both applicable and necessary just about everywhere. Having that 10 hours a week of experience in an office, working with Microsoft Office prepares you so much more for the work environment than I realized back when I was trying to keep up with Harmony 2.

Also, interning early in your college career allows you to network with people in the industry who do not attend Berklee. Keeping in touch with these contacts could land you the job you wanted after college. If you make a good enough impression it could also supply you with a job for the rest of your berklee career, preparing you with the experience necessary to land you that entry level publishing job at BMI.

Not only does interning early better prepare you for life after college, but it also makes all of the information you’re learning in your classes more relevant. This means you will retain more of what you are learning and will be better able to apply it while on the job. This means that you wont forget how to use Excel as soon as your Computer Applications class is over.

Whether you are preparing to graduate or preparing to begin your first semester at Berklee, remember that life does exist after college. Soon you will be paying your own bills, starting your career, and making your dreams a reality.  When you are thinking about what could make life after college easier remember that the more experience you have, the more competitive your resume will be. Start interning early to prepare your resume for what is to come.

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Read Naiquisia’s Other Posts

Veteran Tips for Internships

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Bio

Naiquisia Hensey is a 10th semester student at Berklee. She has spent her last semester as a Music Business Major in New York City interning at Velour Music Group, a small management company for artist such as Soulive, Lettuce, Kaki King and Gramatik to name a few. She started at Berklee in the Fall of 2007 as a singer interested in following her dreams and has been on a musical journey ever since.

 

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