With summer around the corner, some USF students are looking for internships to gain hands-on experience in their fields. 

However, securing an internship isn’t always easy. The average number of applicants on the career platform Handshake for the 2024-25 cycle per internship is 109, compared to 62 the previous year.

With the demand for internships on the rise, some USF students looking for experience said they are facing a few hurdles. 

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Sophomore computer science major Tameem Tantawy, an international student from Egypt, secured an internship with Dropbox this summer — but getting it wasn’t easy.

Tantawy had to go through five separate rounds of interviews before he landed the position.  

He went through an online coding test, a traditional interview, two meetings with an auditor observing as he solved coding challenges and a behavioral assessment. 

“I really struggled in one of the back-to-back interviews,” Tantawy said. “The interviewer had incredibly high standards, I left thinking there was no way I’d make it.” 

He said he was one of 11 sophomores and four juniors from “around the world” accepted to intern at Dropbox this summer. 

Tantawy will be on the desktop app team, maintaining servers and making sure users don’t face any lag or downtime. 

He had also applied to around 200 other internships, but only heard back from “a few.” 

Some companies asked him to complete assessments similar to the ones he did for Dropbox, but many stopped communication afterward. 

“Bently and Adobe are the most notable ones,” Tantawy said. “I was a little upset when they ghosted me because I did really good on the test too.” 

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But Tantawy isn’t the only student who’s been “ghosted” by a company. 

Sebastian Van Agtmaal-Bonet, a sophomore finance major, is facing the same issue. 

Agtmaal-Bonet applied to around 20 internships but only heard back from one, financial service company Northwestern Mutual, which invited him for an interview. 

During the interview with Northwestern Mutual, he shared that he could intern at the company’s location in Tampa since he was taking in-person classes at USF over the summer. 

However, upon hearing that the company also had a location in his hometown in Stuart, Florida, Agtmaal-Bonet decided to switch all his classes to online so he could go home for the summer. 

But he never got a response.  

“I called the store office and no response from them or anybody,” Agtmaal-Bonet said. 

Agtmaal-Bonet, who plans to be a wealth manager, was upset. He would’ve gotten the hands-on experience he was looking for and learned if this was a career he wanted to pursue. 

In the position, Agtmaal-Bonet would shadow a financial planner and learn hands-on from a “veteran,” he said. 

He was unable to switch his USF classes back to in-person, so he’ll be returning to his hometown for the summer, Agtmaal-Bonet said. 

If he cannot find an internship in financial planning until then, he plans to spend his summer cleaning boats at Freedom Boat Club, Agtmaal-Bonet said. 

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Junior mass communications student Zoe Sax was able to find work in a field she has just recently stepped into.

Sax will be working at a local Tampa radio station, WMNF, where she will help produce the morning podcast, “The Scoop.”  

Sax, originally an education major, switched after her first year of college. 

USF professor Ferdinand Zogbaum pointed Sax to the WMNF internship because even though she didn’t have much experience, it was an “entry-level” position. 

“He suggested being persistent and making my case,” Sax said. “Even though I don’t have enough experience yet, you should give me this internship because I’m going to do well and try my best.”