A few days ago, I attended the Meiklejohn Fellowship orientation dinner. Our dinner was hosted by the Loeb Career Center, Amherst College’s hub for internships, fellowships, and other career development opportunities. While enjoying the dinner, I connected with other Meiklejohn Fellows, whether they be other first-year students like me or older fellows there to help us advance our futures. After getting to know them and learning about their summer experiences, I’m definitely more prepared for the summer internship grind!
Let me backtrack a bit—what exactly is the Meiklejohn Fellowship? The fellowship is a program designed for first-generation or low-income first-year students (FGLI). Since many FGLI students don’t have the same financial resources or access to information as non-FGLI peers, Amherst created this program to prepare us for the professional world early in our college careers. After getting a summer internship during the freshman or sophomore years, Meiklejohn Fellows have the opportunity to be funded up to $5,000 from the college! While this funding comes with some restrictions, such as only being available for low-paying or unpaid internships, the financial stability that the Meiklejohn Fellowship offers us FGLI students is invaluable: no matter what, as long as I land an internship, I’ll have the financial means to explore my passions. My class, the Class of 2029, is actually the largest cohort of Meiklejohn Fellows in our college’s history!
After becoming a Meiklejohn Fellow, we attended several workshops to help us prepare to apply for internships. Although the fellowship focuses on professional development, the advisors also introduce other opportunities, such as Amherst’s summer research programs: Summer Science Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) for STEM fields and Schupf Fellowships for the humanities. My favorite workshop was definitely the cover letter workshop—I’ve always been a little confused about what to include and how to format a cover letter, so learning about this topic in more depth was really informative.
The Meiklejohn Fellowship application opens in September for first-year students, but because it has a rolling deadline, I applied in mid-October and heard back about a week later. While the ten-question application may seem intimidating, it’s actually not as scary as it may seem. Most of the responses are only supposed to be a few sentences and are very open-ended. They’re intended to help the Loeb Center get to know us and our career goals, as well as how the Fellowship will help us along the way.
When I applied to Amherst, the opportunity to explore my interests was one of my top priorities. With such a generous program that provides career advice and financial resources, I’m able to shape my future outside of the classroom. The Meiklejohn Fellowship is just one of the ways that Amherst supports FGLI students like me, so if you’re an FGLI student thinking of applying, I highly recommend looking into all of the other resources that Amherst provides us! Who knows—maybe your class will beat out my class’s record for the most Meiklejohn Fellows!
Until next time,
Tony