Cornell first-year law student Avalon Fenster — or @internshipgirl online — gives pre-professional advice to over 300,000 combined followers on her Instagram and TikTok accounts.
This work landed her a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Education class, announced on Dec. 3.
Fenster shares tips for aspiring professionals on how to make their voices heard in applying for internships and networking within social career spheres.
Fenster began her @internshipgirl accounts three years ago and has since amassed more than 186,000 followers on Instagram and over 158,000 on TikTok. Fenster graduated from Barnard College — a women’s college that is part of Columbia University — with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and human rights before transitioning to Cornell Law School this semester.
While still aiming to secure partnerships with organizations focused on promoting early career support, education and equity, Fenster intends to transition @internshipgirl’s focus off of her personal experiences navigating internships and college applications and onto amplifying the advice and experiences of young women in the pre-professional space.
She created the profiles during her sophomore winter break at Barnard College as she was coming off of a year of work at Pay Our Interns, an advocacy nonprofit that researches inequities young women face in their early careers.
Fenster was frustrated by the lack of accessible resources for young professionals looking to mitigate the hurdles of age, gender and social status when breaking into the professional realm. With experience managing social media for the Long Island chapter of March for Our Lives — a gun violence prevention organization — she decided to create an online space for young professionals to learn about how to overcome obstacles.
While Fenster was familiar with social media management, @internshipgirl was different.
“It marked the first time I was really putting my face and my name out there in a big way,” she said.
The brand experienced rapid evolution within just two weeks of its founding and continues to grow three years later. With an initial goal of scoring brand deals and gaining over 10,000 followers on TikTok, Fenster far surpassed these benchmarks, as the account now stands at 158,300 followers.
Shortly after the initial achievements, she was featured in Teen Vogue discussing early career barriers relating to gender and social status. Now she joins the list of accomplished young professionals on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
Fenster said that while she appreciates the recognition, “what’s really, really important is the fact that there are thousands of young women who feel more confident and capable and feel more prepared for their futures than maybe they did before they found what I did.”
She explained how her identity as a first-generation American has shaped her appreciation of the opportunities she’s been afforded.
“My family wasn’t even in this country a generation ago, and both of my parents started out with very, very little,” Fenster said. “It’s not lost on me the weight of getting on that list when it’s a miracle that I’m even here.”
As Fenster works to make a lasting impact in the professional space for young women, she expressed her advice for undergraduates.
“Instead of thinking just about the title that you want upon graduation, or the kind of company you want to work for, think more broadly about the sort of lifestyle you want to lead, the kind of people you want to be around, the kind of places you want to go [and] the kind of things you want to experience,” Fenster said.
Anjelina Gonzalez ’27 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].
Lily Kangas ’27 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].
Clarification, Dec. 11, 1:20 p.m.: This article has been updated to use clearer language in reference to Avalon Fenster’s background as a first-generation American.