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What summer job is better for college students – one that pays well and allows them to save money and pay for expenses, or one that doesn't pay anything but gives them the career-related experience they need to help land a "real" job after college graduation? It's a dilemma that many students face during the summer and sometimes it's difficult to find a job that provides both.

All over the world, women fight for their rights. In Iraq they speak out for women raped and murdered by their husbands, in Colombia they fight to help heal the damage caused by exploiting child soldiers. Everywhere there is injustice, organizations form to support these wronged individuals. Working with MADRE in New York City, Mary Phillips ’11 is learning the business side of a non-profit.

Staring at the computer screen in front of him, Max Williams ’12 rotates a complex MRI image. He opens up the cross sections, targeting the colored area and moving “slices” of the image to better see the specific piece he wants. What is all this technology used to analyze? A chicken embryo’s face, of course! Williams is spending the summer at the Birth Defects Research Lab at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle working to set new parameters for the embryonic development of chickens.

In Nepal, medicine and traditional practices are in a constant tug-of-war for the population’s trust. Although the medical sector is growing, a large segment of the population remains skeptical of modern medical services, resorting to traditional healing practices. Having received a Jeffrey Fund for Science Internship, Akritee Shrestha ’13, is immersing herself in Nepal’s medical field at the Nepal Health Research Council.

Internships, whether paid or unpaid, are often the ideal option for Hamilton students seeking to gain experience in professional fields over the summer months. Hamilton’s Scott Regan ’11 was fortunate enough to find, through HamNet, a summer internship in a field that interests him. Regan will spend this summer as an intern in the offices of Merrimack Valley Legal Services, a law office based in Massachusetts.

ArtCenter/South Florida (ACSF), located in Miami Beach, describes itself as “an access point for artists, curators, and visitors alike. ACSF is a major cultural institution that offers the community exhibitions for up-and-coming visual artists and educational programs in a wide variety of media for many different age groups and skill levels. This summer, Hamilton’s Sarah Perdomo ’12 will be joining the ArtCenter/South Florida team as a teaching assistant at one of the institution’s summer education programs.

Rebecca Behrens ’11 had an internship this summer that could lead to improved lives for people whose bodies are virtually immobile. She spent her summer at UCLA’s Reed Neurological Institute, which works to advance knowledge of spinal cord regeneration. Spinal injuries are serious, and many of the patients staying at the Institute are paralyzed because of a single horrific accident. “Talking with patients who would do anything just to be able to walk again makes me feel like I'm doing something really significant,” Behrens said.

The founder of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) was Marian Wright-Edelman, a leader in the civil rights movement. She was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s friend and legal counsel, and Megan Bumb ’10 was a guest in her home for a barbeque this summer.

"Nature's designs can be so stealth!" Alyssa Kanagaki '10 said. Diseases spread so quickly that it is hard to believe that something as small as a bacterium could cause so much harm. Kanagaki's internship this summer with Dr. Suckjoon Jun gave her the chance to explore these microscopic marvels more closely. Dr. Jun, a physicist who has recently turned to biology, wants to know how one cell becomes two cells. It's not a simple question, nor does it have a simple answer. He and his team at Harvard University’s FAS Center for Systems Biology study this and other details of a cell's life.

Born in Harlem, educated at Hamilton then Harvard, civil rights leader Dr. Robert P. Moses’ life is an inspirational story in the style of 19th century Horatio Alger novels. He graduated from Hamilton in 1956 and founded The Algebra Project (AP) in 1982 as a means to advance public school education, especially in mathematics, for every child. He and the people at The Algebra Project feel that every child is entitled to a proper education in order to succeed in an increasingly technology-based society.