Every year, the Aspen Institute welcomes a group of talented college interns who bring fresh perspectives and curiosity to our work. This summer, Liv de Jounge joined us as part of that cohort, contributing her energy and insight to the Aspen Business & Society Summit. In this piece, she reflects on what she learned about deep listening, collaboration, and moving from ideas to action.

What if one summer internship determined the rest of your life?

Every college junior faces it: the internship search that feels like it will decide your entire future. Rationally, I knew it wasn’t true, but in the moment, every résumé edit, interview round, and thank-you email, felt like the stakes couldn’t be higher. The process felt less like career development and more like The Hunger Games, only now we’re not just up against each other, but also the newest tribute: AI. The intense pressure to secure something prestigious isn’t just about landing an internship. It’s about building the right kind of career.

I decided to reframe this endless scramble as a chance to shape my destiny. I knew my strengths would be best used in an environment that moved beyond polarization, one focusing on convening and meaningful conversation. I wanted to “do good,” by understanding how conversations about change translate (or fail to translate) into action. I started my job search with phrases like “changemaking internship.” When I landed on the Aspen Institute’s Business & Society Program internship, phrases like “challenging conventional ideas about capitalism” and “testing new measures of business success” caught my eye. The position suggested I would have the opportunity to support and enable important conversations about change.

At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly what I would learn, but in hindsight I realize I was intrigued by the changemaking potential of business leaders. I believe in values-based leadership, and I wanted to work with powerful people who have resources to drive change.

What can you learn in 40 days?

If this internship were a video game, I entered with basic gear (a laptop and a whole lot of curiosity) and left with a full toolbelt and experience navigating programs like Airtable, Cvent, SurveyMonkey, PowerPoint, and Excel.

The seven weeks I spent with the Aspen Business & Society Program gave me opportunities to expand my skillset, each challenge leading up to a three-day Summit at the Aspen Institute campus in Colorado. Before the event, I created a digital lookbook of Summit participants, and regularly updated the attendee app, crafting speaker bios, adding event details, and cross-checking participant names and organizations. Finally, the moment our team had been preparing for all year, arrived. I began with registering attendees, briefing them on the events ahead. Over the course of the Summit, I supported speaker panels and roundtables as a note taker and mic runner, and assisted with the production of podcast recording. While I wasn’t always at the table, I was in the room where it happens, immersed in the energy of honest Chatham House conversations among leaders with a real stake in the future of our world.

By the end of my seven weeks with the Business & Society Program, I left with event planning skills and a network of connections in fields I care about. But the real wisdom came from one-on-one conversations I had with each BSP team member. I filed these insights under “Things No One Teaches You in School”: play to your strengths but stay open to new skills, say yes to unexpected opportunities, and remember career paths aren’t linear. I learned to humanize myself, by admitting what I don’t know, letting go of the pressure to have everything figured out and appreciating my mistakes as an important step in the learning process.

What will we make of this moment?

In her opening remarks at the Summit, Judy Samuelson, the Executive Director of the Business & Society Program, urged participants to take advantage of this moment, reminding everyone, “Optimism does not promote action. Action promotes optimism.”

I realize that by virtue of their attendance, leaders were taking the first step of many to turn conversations about change into action. As a leader in training, this internship confirmed that I’m motivated by environments where people come together to wrestle with big questions. I left with a sharper sense of my own capacity to bring people together, rally them behind an idea, and add value in spaces where business and society intersect.

My peers and I are entering a workforce that is both extraordinarily competitive and shaped by unprecedented global uncertainty. As the world shifts beneath our feet – AI changing the fundamental nature of work and student debt looming for many – I see many of us grappling with the same question: do we work within polarized systems, or do we seek alternative spaces for impact? At first glance, it may feel like hatred and division are growing, and yet, we are also living in a world of remarkable innovation. For every indicator of despair, there is an equally powerful surge of hope. My generation will inherit the world’s problems, and my cohort of graduates will define how we respond. The first step won’t just be finding a job; it will be finding a place where our skills, our curiosity, and our values can make a difference. I once feared that an internship could define my life, and in a way, it did: not by deciding my future, but by showing me the path I’m meant to follow.

Liv de Jounge is a student in the Santa Clara University class of 2026, majoring in Economics and Political Science.