Summer's Over-- Time to Apply

Now is the time to start seeking out internship and scholarship options for next summer and fall. Application deadlines start as early as next week (Oct. 1) and it's important for promising Latinas like us to seek out opportunities for personal enrichment.
A program that I would like to recommend for any college students is one that I am quite familiar with: The Hispanic National Internship Program (HNIP). Every semester, including the summer, HNIP places hundreds of college juniors and seniors in federal agencies across the U.S. There the students get hands-on experiences as interns in fields related to their college studies and actually live in the cities where they're placed anywhere between 10-weeks to 4 months.
This summer, I participated in the program, which is sponsored by The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. I went to Washington D.C. for 10 weeks and worked as a Video Production Assistant for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Having already lived in D.C. for a semester last year, I was more than happy to go back to the city. I love D.C.!
HNIP accepts nearly 400 students every semester, and once in students can expect to attend various leadership training and meetings hosted by the program. Locations students go to are mainly situated in Washington D.C. but there are also some federal agencies that request interns in cities like Philadelphia, and New York City, just to name a few. I know that a few of the interns in previous years interned with the National Parks Service and went to places in New Mexico and central Texas.
During my internship I worked on scripts for online broadcasts the Veterans Affairs produce to train home loan officials. I worked on three of their broadcasts and even went to film one of them in a studio in St. Louis, Missouri. I got to meet some great people and made good connections in my field. I even co-anchored "VA News This Week," a Veteran's Affairs weekly news program that appears in VA Hospitals across the nation and online.
I had never been on camera, let alone read the news on camera, and it was really exciting and I had a lot of fun.
Applications for the program are being accepted now on Unfortunately this program is for college students, so keep it in mind once you're eligible.

And for you Latinitas who aspire to be college students (which all of you better be!), here's a link for a good scholarship opportunity
I will keep my eye out for any other scholarships that may arise. So stay tuned...