Podcast Summary:
Josh Subhan shares a real-world look at how internships can open doors from college to career. As a University of Minnesota grad who is turning his internship at Metro Transit into a full-time job, Josh breaks down what internships are, when to start applying, and how the process actually works. He walks through finding opportunities on company career pages and sites like Indeed, preparing resumes and interviews, and using campus career centers and State Services for the Blind for mock interviews and connections. Josh also talks honestly about disclosure, accessibility tools, and finding your niche in a changing job market. Most of all, he reminds students not to get discouraged—applications can be tough, but persistence, preparation, and using your network can make the difference between waiting for an opportunity and landing one.
Link to the Internship episode:
Internships for Students: Real Work, Real Experience, Real Opportunities
To find out more about the services provided at State Services for the Blind, and what they can do for you, contact Shane DeSantis at shane.desantis@state.mn.us or call Shane at 651-385-5205.
Full Transcript
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Jeff: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Geoff Thompson. Today in studio we’re going to be talking about internships. And with us is Josh Subhan. He’s a college graduate from the University of Minnesota. And he’s here to talk to us all about it. Josh, how are you doing.
Josh: Doing well thank you. How about yourself?
Jeff: I’m doing good. And thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Blind Abilities. Josh, why don’t you kick it off with what is an internship?
Josh: Yeah, so internship is essentially a job that you have while you’re either in college or just after college that allows you to gain experiences in your field. The main purpose of doing them is to just have something on your resume for when you graduate, and want to apply for other jobs in your field and start your career, you have something on there already. You know? It helps you maybe stand apart from other candidates or you know, something, something to reference to when you’re answering interview questions.
Jeff: Yeah, experience and resume building. That’s good stuff. So Josh, tell us a little bit more about the application process.
Josh: Many internships do have applications. It’s the same applying for a job typically companies or businesses. Organizations will have a careers page listing all the jobs that are open, and that’s where they would list internships if they offer them.
Jeff: Once again, great experience. Not much difference between an internship and a job interview. Was there an in-person interview component as well?
Josh: It runs a little bit differently, but my process was I just had one interview and it was virtual. Sometimes you’ll have to be in person, or sometimes you won’t even have two interviews. Two interviews a lot. I feel like that’s less. That’s less common for internships and more common for jobs post-college.
Jeff: Josh, as I mentioned, you just graduated from the University of Minnesota and your internship led you to Metro Transit here in Minnesota.
Josh: Yes it did. I actually just wrapping up my internship with them and moving on to a full time position here in the near future.
Jeff: Congratulations. When should a student start the process of looking for an internship? And what is that process like?
Josh: Yeah, it definitely sort of depends on your goals and like sort of your education level and like your background. So like for me, I didn’t apply until I was like a sophomore in college because at that point, I had sort of learned enough of the basics on my field of computer science that I could apply it and utilize it in a productive way in an internship or a job. So typically, about halfway through your college career, assuming you’re going to a four year university, is when you probably want to start looking and applying for internships.
Jeff: That’s good information. Josh, was State Services for the Blind involved in your internship process?
Josh: Yeah. Asked my counselor, what sort of connections they had or what ways I could utilize resources to help me find internships and even like interview prep, application tips and tricks to make sure you try to get to that interview stage.
Jeff: Oh, yeah. It’s quite involved, isn’t it?
Josh: It is. Absolutely.
Jeff: Josh, for our listeners, can you share with us some resources that are out there for internships?
Josh: Yeah, InDeed is absolutely a good one that I used a lot when I was searching. Essentially it’s a job board site. And so, you know, you put in your location or you’re looking for a job or internship and you type in in the search box like computer science internship, because that’s my field. And so you search and you see what comes up. And Indeed it has like a quick apply feature where if you already have your resume uploaded, you can just hit a button and it shoots it off, or it’ll link you to the company’s page. Then you go for your application there. I also just like looked at companies and organizations that I liked or knew about, and checked their careers page to see if they offered any internships.
Jeff: So looking for an internship, I mean jobs, you look for jobs, but internships companies actually list internship opportunities on their website?
Josh: Yeah. So typically companies will have them listed with their other jobs on their career page or like their Join Us page. There you click on Find Jobs. Internships will typically be listed there and they’ll say like some title an internship. So you know that it’s an internship that you can apply for.
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Jeff: I decided to jump on the internet and check this out. I went to a company called 3M at 3M.com.
VO Speak: 3M.com.
Jeff: went to their careers page.
VO Speak: Careers page., button.
Jeff: Search for Jobs.
VO Speak: Search for jobs.
Jeff: In the search bar I typed in. Internship.
VO Speak: Internship. Search button.
Jeff: 17 jobs appeared.
VO Speak: 17 jobs found.
Jeff: Here’s a sampling of the jobs internships that were available.
VO Speak: Internship Undergraduate. Marketing. Intern.
Internship 2026 MBA intern. Safety and Industrial Business group.
Internship 2026 undergraduate business.analytics.intern.Consumer.business.group.internship. Undergraduate field sales intern. Internship. Undergraduate marketing intern MBA strategy intern.Transportation and electronics business internship. Undergraduate marketing intern.
Jeff: And there’s quite a few more listings here under the three M.com website, and you can do that for any company. Just go into their company’s website, go to their careers or their jobs offerings, and use internship as the key word.
Josh, with your experience at the University of Minnesota, what kind of tools do they provide when you’re looking for a job or internship opportunity?
Josh: University of Minnesota has a Career Center, and they have a host of career counselors, some of which are specific to a certain industry or know about a certain industry. And you can go to them for like resume, help to polish your resume, interview preparation, mock interviews, and they’ll help you sort of find internships, find listings for them.
Jeff: Well that’s great. And at SSB the employment specialist can help in that area as well. Mock interviews where one can go through an interview process and get a good understanding of that process, kind of shake out the jitters and be able to prepare for a real one.
Josh:
Josh: Absolutely.
Jeff: yeah, resumes and mock interviews. Those are some skills that are nice to have as you start the process of applying for internships and jobs. Good stuff. Josh, can you tell us a little bit about the tools that you use to do your job?
Josh: Yeah, so my job essentially is very much like equivalent to a Business Systems Analyst position, which means like I’m doing a lot of data analysis report building, making visualizations and dashboards to present information about various things to stakeholders or to my team. And so the tools I use most for that is like the Microsoft Power Apps suite of applications. So, Power BI, Power BI Report Builder, Power Automate, Excel and Word to use these to create the reports that you know my boss is asking me to create. That’s how I build the reports. The data, you know, comes from a server, a data on a database. And we use SQL or SQL or Structured Query Language. It’s just a coding language to get the data from the database into the report tool, and then manipulate the data to show a visual or a table or whatever.
Jeff: What kind of tools are you using to access this information?
Josh: I’m using the zoom feature on my machine to make things bigger. Magnifying glass tool as well, to sort of highlight things and make things easier to see for me.
Jeff: Just a different way.
Josh: Right? Absolutely.
Jeff: Magnification has come a long ways. I think over the last ten years we’ve seen a growth in handheld devices, electronic digital devices for people to utilize, especially with the age onset vision loss. Magnification has really come a long ways.
Josh: It has. Absolutely.
Jeff: Josh, sometimes in an interview process, the white elephant in the room is the disability um, and disclosing a disability. What was the process like for you when going through the job interview?
Josh: You can do this at different times. Either you know your application, interview or onboarding process, right? I typically I’m applying for jobs. I do not disclose that I have a disability. And then when I am onboarded or hired, I do then mention like, oh, I have a vision impairment. I need to use these tools on the computer, the Windows machine that I’m using, and it’s usually not a problem.
Jeff: Same job. Different way.
Josh: Yeah.
Jeff: Josh, can you tell us how state Services for the Blind, SSB, helped you in your journey into college?
Josh: Yeah, so SSB actually helped a lot. I was trying to figure out what I actually wanted to major in when I was just leaving high school, when I was a junior. I was torn between two majors, you know, computer science or political science at the time, I had really gotten into political science and into American history, and I found really interesting, and I really wanted to pursue it in some way. And so SSB sort of got me in contact with someone who worked at the State House here in Minnesota. And I talked with them. They explained what their job is like, what they do, you know, how they do it, and helped me gain some insight about sort of what that field is like. So let me make a decision about what I wanted to major in.
Jeff: Yeah, they got quite the team over there. When you’re researching jobs and career opportunities, what the marketplace is like for that particular field, and one can save a lot of time if they can make that decision early in their educational journey.
Josh: Yes.
Jeff: Josh, from high school to college to the workplace, how is your perspective about gaining a career changed?
Josh: When I first was in late high school beginning of college, I was pretty confident that I would get a job just because my field was booming. Still, at the time, computer science was like anyone could get a job with a computer science degree in my field when I was, you know, just graduating high school, starting college. That’s different now. Sort of the bubble has sort of popped, and it’s a little bit harder for new grads to get jobs in my field.
Jeff: But you keep on pursuing.
Josh: Yeah, that’s, you know, all you can do is keep on pursuing. I also, like it’s important to maybe try and find your niche. So like my niche, you know, is working in tech in transit. It’s a niche. And so like once you get into like a niche like that or any sort of niche within your field, it becomes a lot easier to find jobs or internships.
Jeff: That makes good sense. Know yourself. Know how you can best present yourself on your resume to fit the description of the application of the job that you’re seeking.
Josh: Right. Absolutely.
Jeff: Josh, before we go. What advice do you have for a student who is interested in the internship process?
Josh: Yeah, I think if you’re starting to look for internships and this depends on the field. Try not to get discouraged. It can be hard. You know, you put in a lot of applications and you don’t hear something. It gets a little discouraging. My advice is just to like, just to keep applying for things, keep looking and utilize the people you know. Utilize the connections that you have in order to find opportunities. That’s one thing I learned that connections are really, really important, especially right now with the job market. They’re really important, and they make finding a job or internship a lot easier.
Jeff: Well, Josh, thank you so much for coming on to blind Abilities and sharing your internship journey with us. Good luck with your upcoming job. And once again, thank you so much.
Josh: Yeah, thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Jeff: Such a great time talking to Josh about internships. And if you’re interested in internships, we just published an episode on internships with the team from SSB, Tou and Randi, and they are Transition Navigators, And they went through a list of a lot of opportunities from around the state of Minnesota, and a lot of resources where you can find out more about internships. And I’ll put a link to that episode in the show notes. I want to thank you for listening. And until next time, bye-bye.
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Jeff: To find out more about all the programs at State Services for the Blind, contact Shane.DeSantis@State.Mn.us
That’s Shane dot d-e-s-a-n-t-i-s at state.mn .us.
Be sure to contact your State Services for the Blind, your Voc Rehab and find out what they can do for you.
Live, work, read, succeed.
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When we share-
What we see
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