On April 10, PA juniors and seniors participated in the 33rd annual CBDA internship day. This opportunity allows upperclassmen to experience future careers of interest in places throughout Town Center.
PA Assistant Principal Angelica Livingston explained, “The internship day gives [students] the opportunity to experience the field or what is a typical day like in this field that they’re interested in.”
The Central Business District Association (CBDA), hosts numerous events that support the business community, including this event at PA each year. The CBDA is an organization that “supports the growth and development of the business community within the City of Virginia Beach’s Pembroke Strategic Growth Area (SGA),” according to the CBDA website. Their goal is to aid in economic development and networking of their member businesses.
Junior Eleanor Foard, who went to the Audacy radio station, explained the CBDA further: “They’re a combination of a whole bunch of businesses in Town Center and they work together to better the whole town center community.”
“When you’re in your junior or senior year, you’ll get an email that has an application to be a part of the process,” junior Daivi Master explained. “After that, you apply and you’re either on the waitlist or you get in. You then select your top interests.” This year, there were more applicants than ever before.
On the internship day, juniors and seniors are paired up with numerous businesses, like Sentara Hospital and the Westin Hotel, that are members of the CBDA. “The way it works is we pair up juniors and seniors that apply as far as what their career interests might be,” Livingston commented. “Then, we work with CBDA and place students in different business internships that are based on their interests.” Everyone was able to be paired with businesses with their first or second career choice, with all seniors getting their first choice in career, according to Livingston.
Before the day’s activities began, there was a light breakfast hosted at PA where the students met with the CBDA businesses that they will be working with for the day, according to Livingston. The students then went to their respective internships via bus or car.
“There were many banks. My friend went to the fire station. Some people went to hotels and learned hospitality,” Master commented. “There were people that went to Sentara as well. There were internships at law firms, housing facilities, apartments at architecture places.” Master went to TowneBank because of her interest in business where she learned about working in a bank.
Everyone went to the Westin Hotel after their internships were over, where lunch was given, and the leaders of the CBDA spoke, junior Natalie Fisher explained. Senior Faith Qin, a student keynote speaker from PA, who talked about the purpose of the day. She then introduced another keynote speaker from the CBDA who talked about the goal of the organization and the benefits it brings to members.
The lunch also included a scholarship, called the X scholarship, where the winners were announced at the lunch to help in higher education, according to the CBDA website. Livingston commented, “There’s also a scholarship that is provided by CBDA, so they award three who participated in the internship with the scholarship money that they can use after they graduated from high school.” The PA students who won the scholarship were Maggie Tu, Jacey Li, and Yoshita Padiri, who won the Alex Divaris Memorial Scholarship along with the X scholarship.
This internship day allowed for students to experience possible real-life careers, helping them plan for the future. The internship opened up different interests and possibilities for careers for herself and her friends, according to Foard.
Fisher went to a fire station to learn more about her interest in the medical field. She commented on her experiences, “I am very grateful for this opportunity to experience these internships. I recommend it to everyone.”
