Dan Newman

Graduation Year: Spring 2009

Major(s): Music (composition), Philosophy

Campus activities: Music direct an a cappella group; Chairman and founder of A Cappella Etc. (an umbrella org. for a cappella groups); UDR for the Music Department; Music Theory tutor w/ BUGS; Cooking show with BTv; Admissions, ResLife, and Student Life employee; sundry theater productions

Where are you interning now (or have interned in the past)?

Humanitarian Notes- This organization goes to Africa and gets local musicians to record their music and talk about HIV/AIDS awareness. Humanitarian Notes helps publicize the artists, spread awareness, and other activities related to HIV/AIDS.

How did you find your internship?

When I was networking to put together a Davis Project for Peace proposal, I came across Amy Taylor, one of the founding members of HN and a Brandeis graduate student. When the Davis proposal fell through, I still wanted to do something with music and Africa and this organization seemed like a phenomenal opportunity to pursue.

What resources did you utilize to help you prepare for the search?

Word of mouth- administrators at Brandeis, students at Brandeis, the African forum, etc.

What ways did you explore to fund your internship?

WOW grant (for which I was not awarded), then I just swallowed the cost. I didn’t have to travel (all my work was through the computer), and I took two other jobs to sustain my summer.

What are the two most important things you learned through your internship?

Your expectations are not the same as other expectations. I found that I was much tougher on myself than a young organization that was thrilled to have an intern. Their no-pressure approach made doing work for them creative and enjoyable, rather than dull drudgery. For an internship that wasn’t critical to my future, having it be a fun experience was necessary.

The other important thing I learned was that you need expectations. If I wasn’t making bi-weekly reports, I wouldn’t have kept up the work that I set out for myself. Knowing that I have to send a report of what I did to the organization kept the motivation going, even when I may have not had it internally.

What advice would you give other students looking for internships?

Think outside the box. Either invent a job for yourself with an organization you want to work with (why would they turn down a free worker?), or make yourself desirable by selling your unique perspective. An organization has no interest in wasting time on training someone to work for a summer. They do have a strong interest in seeing what a new set of eyes and hands can do for their efforts.

How are you connecting this internship to your academic, personal, and career future?

I do music. Music is usually for art’s sake, which is nice but doesn’t do anything real. Humanitarian Notes is allowing me to use music to change the world for the better. They’re asking me to do projects I’m not too familiar with, and these new experiences are helping me grow as a person, as well as gaining new skills to market to the world after graduation. They also have resources and contacts that I would never get my hands on otherwise. There’s a Kenyan folk saying: Leave a good name in case you return.