Student Spotlight: University of California, Berkeley Internship Program in Toronto (2023 Student Recap)

The University of California, Berkeley collaborated with Global Career Center (GCC) on an 8-week internship program in Toronto, Canada. This blog post features a profile of past student, Claudia Holland, who graduated from Berkeley in May 2025 in Mathematics and Astrophysics. Claudia shared with the GCC team how her internship experience in 2023 helped her land her post-grad opportunity in Toronto, which she is due to begin in Fall 2025.

"After my sophomore year at UC, Berkeley, I wanted to gain hands-on experience and came across the Global Career Center program on the day of the deadline and applied on a whim - it seemed like an internship would be a great opportunity for growth. I was also born in Vancouver, Canada but had never traveled outside of British Columbia, so going to Toronto was the perfect chance to explore a new part of the country.

From left to right: Claudia, Pam and fellow Berkeley students at Toronto Island; Claudia enjoying a sweet treat; Niagara Falls boat trip; Ripley's Aquarium; CN Tower Sign; Berkeley students and Pam at Niagara Falls.

I held two internship opportunities while in Toronto for 8 weeks. The first was with a drone reforestation start-up where I contributed to a literature review, which helped me strengthen my scientific writing and communication skills. Secondly, I supported outreach and marketing efforts at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, where I gained valuable insight into an Indigenous astronomy education initiative, while contributing to graphic design and science education communication efforts. On the technical side, I developed skills in database management and cross-cultural competencies working in a lab environment surrounded by graduate students and researchers which also sparked my own interest in pursuing research more seriously.

These two internships opened the door to many more opportunities and I was able to secure interviews with other companies. My work in scientific writing at a drone reforestation start-up helped me land a role writing a NASA press release for an upcoming Mars mission at the Berkeley Space Sciences Lab. While with the Space Sciences Lab, I worked directly with the scientists and engineers on the mission which helped me grow my network in the space industry, especially in aerospace engineering, an area of passion. Working on that mission ultimately led to an interview with Rocket Lab, where I’ll be joining as an Optical Engineering Intern this fall, back in Toronto where my journey began, that's pretty much full circle!"