I also post about my own career journey as a student on my LinkedIn where I share my advice, successes and failures, experiences, passion projects, and more. If you want to follow along my journey as the founder of this early career student community and newsletter, connect with me HERE!

Hello all! Yes, it’s Arlina Yang, the founder of this newsletter (it’s quite funny to be writing my own response for my own questions).

I did want to share one of my own wins as the start of the first issue in 2025, so I wanted to share a snippet or two of both my role right now at Siemens and some miscellaneous updates for CareerNow as the founder.

I’m currently pursuing a content marketing internship with Siemens part-time on a remote status for the Spring 2025 timeline (Jan-May). I’ve just only recently started as I’m still waiting for my company laptop to arrive but a project that I’ve been assigned is the creation of media graphics for one of Siemens’ social channels.

A typical day as a part-time status is definitely an interesting comparison to what a full-time internship could look like in a summer term. A part-time status is usually 20 hours/week. I start in the morning and after some hours of work, I would then go to my classes in the middle of the day. There are also days in the week where I would work in the later end of the day or the full day depending on my classes.

I’m also currently working on balancing the workload of school, Siemens internship, and CareerNow. Please be patient with me throughout this process as I work to best provide for this community (a lot of new content and resources coming soon!!) and apologies for the one-week delay from what I promised to be a 3-week break turned one month break. First week of winter quarter was brutal haha.

It’s completely normal to have these questions and doubts—many students do. I personally was almost going to go into journalism until I took an internship that made me question my potential career in journalism. If you’re debating on what you want to do with your career, I would recommend trying out new clubs, internships, and passion projects to get a feel of what you like to do and what you don’t want to do.

Those are all great ways for you to learn more about yourself without the same pressure and risks if you were to not know the direction of your career after graduation. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different paths—you might just stumble upon a passion that turns into a career you love.

College is not just a time to follow a set path, but to create your own.

The U.S. Supreme Court is deliberating whether to uphold a law that might ban Tiktok unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divest its American operations. This significant legal battle pits free speech rights against national security concerns, with the Biden administration arguing that Tiktok poses a serious risk as it could allow China to access American user data or manipulate content.

The court heard from both sides, including Tiktok lawyers and the Biden administration, with Tiktok’s potential influence on public opinion and user privacy at the forefront of discussions. The decision could affect Tiktok’s 170 million U.S. users and set a precedent for how the government regulates foreign-owned digital platforms. Read more HERE from USA Today.

Los Angeles faces renewed fire threats as heavy winds expected today (Monday) could undermine firefighting efforts, potentially leading to “explosive fire growth.” Firefighters have made significant progress, with the Hurst fire 95% contained, but the upcoming gusts pose a major challenge.

Despite a slight reduction in evacuation numbers, tens of thousands remain on high alert. Officials additionally emphasize the continued risk and the importance of remaining vigilant against the volatile conditions of the fire. Read more LIVE HERE from New York Times.

Please reference this list of resources if you’re potentially impacted by the fires or knows someone who is: https://tinyurl.com/lafireresourcesifyouneed

Please stay safe!!!

🟠 Workatastartup.com is a directory of jobs from Y Combinator startups. So you would submit one application for hundreds of top jobs at YC companies, and founders who are interested in your application.profile could reach out to you or browse the directory of profiles to find aligning applicants for their job listings.

🍊 They have a variety of positions for job seekers (full-time positions / founding members / etc) AND students for internships. If you’re still searching for a summer 2025 internship or even Spring 2025, workatastartup.com might have a role for you.

Note: It is common for startups to not have a lot of funding, so there are a handful of unpaid roles out on the market both for job seekers and interns. Please weigh out your own time commitments and experience when deciding on taking on potentially unpaid roles.