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How an international UNC student landed an AI summer internship after changing her major

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Vivienne Hnin, a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who will be interning at AI-native startup Utilyst this summer. Her employment and identity have been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I came to Chapel Hill in 2023 as an international student enrolled in pre-med.

My country, Burma, was on the travel ban list last year, so I couldn’t go home and had to find a summer job. As a biology major, I didn’t have a lot of options for summer internships. That made me reevaluate my major because I felt medical school might be difficult as an international student with all the policy changes.

So, I started exploring other options. Part of the reason I decided to pivot into computer science is because of AI. In the past, people who went into computer science had been coding since they were very young. They knew the fundamentals coming in.

I didn’t have robotics or computer science classes growing up. With AI, you can learn at a much faster pace. UNC was also really accommodating and helped me switch majors and explore my interests without locking me into a major that I chose freshman year.

It was hard to adapt and get an internship this cycle because I started late, so I tried a bunch of tactics. Here’s what worked:

1. I started building projects and posting about them.

Over winter break, I pivoted and started building projects with AI.

These are essentially assignments you make yourself. A lot of juniors, especially those without internships secured, have personal projects. I learned that it’s important to have a good front-end that’s accessible because recruiters who review these projects aren’t always technical.

I made videos and posted about them on LinkedIn. That garnered some traction. Some recent alumna also started reaching out to me about coffee chats.

I decided to cater all of my projects toward one or more major coding languages so hiring managers would see that I was proficient in all the major coding languages. I also launched the projects, which showed that I was able to make it a full-stack project.

2. I attended hackathons.

I started going to hackathons because they were a great way to learn new technologies and work with people.

I also practiced a lot of technical concepts through self-studying.

3. I networked a lot.

I got LinkedIn Premium for a month and started cold DMing people. I had a lot of LinkedIn connections, and a lot of important people were either my first or my second connections at the time, so I was able to message them. I think it’s really important to keep upping your connection count on LinkedIn. If you’re a student looking for a job, I recommend getting Premium for a month.

I searched for founders from UNC. I got ignored a lot, as one would expect when they beg for an internship in a LinkedIn DM. However, I received responses from two alumni, and both led to offers.

One of the professors I reached out to actually got me an AI engineering internship at Utilyst, which I’ll be working at this summer and fall.

4. I used Handshake and career fairs.

There are a lot of scam job postings. I found Handshake more reliable because it’s affiliated with schools. Career fairs are also great because if you can convince the recruiter that you’re worth their time, you may be able to skip the line and get an interview.

5. I didn’t listen to the noise.

One thing that computer science and pre-med majors have in common is that they want to be the one person crossing the finish line. There’s a lot of sabotage, and people are very business-minded.

When you go on Reddit, you’re going to see a lot of bad advice. For example, I was told to focus only on my grades, and that personal projects are useless because people can now build with AI, so they won’t help you stand out.

I have never been asked about my GPA, transcript, or even my courses. I have been asked primarily about my projects. Also, most of the interviews I’ve done actually accommodate the use of AI. Whether it’s in real life or online, sometimes the advice is not accurate.

People also make the industry seem more competitive than it is. Part of my decision to enter CS was out of spite. I was talking with one of my fellow international students who’s a CS major, and he told me I switched too late and I wouldn’t be able to get an internship. That made me want to start applying.




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I’m a Stanford student who uses the new dating app that’s taken the campus by storm. It’s fun, but I haven’t met my match yet.

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mila Wagner-Sanchez, a freshman at Stanford Univeristy, who uses Date Drop, a new dating app created by Henry Weng, a Stanford senior. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m a 19-year-old freshman at Stanford University. I wasn’t sure what to expect on campus — whether people would be actively dating or not. I have friends on both sides of the spectrum; some are more focused on school and friendships, and some are in relationships.

But I initially found Date Drop through my friends.

It was one of those week one things — everyone was getting to know each other, and we all decided it could be fun if we signed up together.

Date Drop has interesting dating app features

I’ve never been on a dating app like Hinge or Tinder, but I was surprised by the complexity of the questions that Date Drop asked. The questions on Date Drop were like: “What do you do for fun,” “What are you doing academically,” “Do you have any age, height, or ethnicity preferences,” and so on.

It also asked whether you preferred long-term or short-term relationships, and how many kids you wanted. It was very comprehensive. There was even an open-ended question asking me to describe my perfect date.

Anyone on campus can sign up — from freshmen to seniors to grad students. We have another similar platform on campus called Marriage Pact that matches once a year, but Date Drop matches weekly.

Also, if you want to get to know someone, you can enter their info, or if you want to try to match two people, you can influence the algorithm. For example, you can play matchmaker and enter the info for two people across the hall from each other that you want matched. It never tells you who has put you into Date Drop; it’ll say that someone has “shipped” you with someone else.

I got matched twice

The first time, I was matched with a friend of mine, which was fun. We treated it as a friend date and went out to get coffee at a coffee shop that was giving out free drinks to Date Drop dates.

I was matched a second time, but that person didn’t reach out, so it went nowhere.

After that, I had other stuff going on, like midterms that I needed to focus on, and Date Drop had kind of lost its novelty. Most of my friends had a similar experience.

I’d be open to doing it again

Stanford is smaller, so I think it’s easier to get to know people than it is at a state school. There’s more of a community, and the chances of you knowing a friend who knows your Date Drop or a friend of a friend are high. A lot of people have similar interests, which makes it easier to strike up a conversation than it might be at a bigger school.

Our generation has grown up on online platforms and sees them as a way to connect with others. It’s definitely a culture shift. I also think it’s not bad to try something new. You never know what’s going to happen, and I think a lot of us go into it with that mentality.

While I didn’t find a match, I’d be open to doing it again in the future. I do know a couple of Date Drop couples. I’d do it again if it were something my sophomore year dorm wanted to do together, as a way to get out there and meet people.




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Ayelet Sheffey

What to know about changes for parents taking out student loans for their kids

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Parents could see big student-loan changes in the new year.

Beginning July 1, 2026, the Department of Education will begin implementing President Donald Trump’s student-loan repayment overhaul, which he signed into law in his “big beautiful” spending legislation.

The overhaul includes new income-driven repayment plans and lower borrowing caps — including for the Parent PLUS program, which allowed parents to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their kids’ educations. The department is planning to impose a $65,000 lifetime borrowing limit per dependent student, or $20,000 per year, which will limit parents’ ability to use federal financing to help send their children to college.

The new borrowing cap would apply to parents taking out new loans in 2026. Existing Parent PLUS borrowers who took out loans before July 1, 2026, can continue borrowing at their existing terms until 2028.

Additionally, parents who take out loans after July 1 will only have access to the standard repayment plan and will not be able to enroll in the new Repayment Assistance Plan, which the Department of Education is rolling out to replace existing income-driven repayment plans.

A September analysis from the Brookings Institution said that, based on data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey and the College Scorecard, 7.7% of undergrad students had parents who took out Parent PLUS loans at an average amount of $16,272 in the 2019-2020 school year. Higher-income families borrowed higher amounts: the analysis said that among families earning more than $130,000 annually, 46% took out more than $20,000 in Parent PLUS loans each year.

“However, these patterns mask a crucial insight: While lower-income families borrow smaller absolute amounts, they face significantly higher debt-to-income ratios,” the analysis said, meaning that the repayment burden tends to be greater for lower-income families despite borrowing at lower amounts.

Parent PLUS loans also tend to have the highest interest rates among federal student loans, currently standing at 8.94%. Still, the analysis said, they have several advantages, including access to more flexible repayment options and interest deductions on federal taxes.

The new limits could leave parents looking for alternative options to help pay for their kids’ educations, including turning to private lending, which tends to have higher interest rates with riskier terms. They come as the department is also eliminating the Grad PLUS loan program and placing new borrowing caps for graduate and professional students, with the goal of curbing excessive student-loan borrowing.




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