Bridget Maston
By Zoë Eitel
In March 2020, when Bridget Maston had to move out of the DePaul dorms due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she was grateful to find that her internship supervisors were very understanding and allowed her to start remote work before the rest of the office.
It was a tough experience for Bridget, moving from an office environment where she was able to see and interact with her coworkers every day to working remote. But she has been able to find ways to make working from home work for her.
“When we started working from home, it began as a very isolating experience. All of the sudden, I wasn’t able to ask for help or joke around with my coworkers. Slowly, we were able to communicate more via chats and video conferences,” she says, adding that it was hard at first to figure out what tasks she needed to be doing without having the materials physically in front of her. “This required a lot more communication and less observation. It’s taken a while but I’ve found new ways to be proactive in this working environment.”
Bridget started her unpaid internship at Wang, Leonard, Condon & Seyfried in October 2019, working to help immigrants from Latin America and other parts of the world file for asylum. After continuing there through the rest of the academic year as a legal intern, Bridget was offered a paid position as a legal assistant in June 2020.
Legal Assistant at Wang, Leonard, Condon & Seyfried
BA International Studies & Spanish 2023
Bridget has been able to supplement her education in International Studies with everything she has learned working with immigrants seeking asylum. She is also able to use tangible examples from her internship while having class discussions.
“In writing about our clients’ journeys, I gained a better understanding of the immigrant experience and understood why everyone in the office works so hard for the people we represent,” she says. “Going into my internship, I worried that I would leave the experience disillusioned with immigration law, or law in general. I am approaching a full year with WLCS, and I am even more interested in immigration law than the day I started.”
“Going into my internship, I worried that I would leave the experience disillusioned with immigration law, or law in general. I am approaching a full year with WLCS, and I am even more interested in immigration law than the day I started.”
Bridget started looking for internships early, asking for advice from her Resident Advisors only a month into her freshman year. They suggested she look at Handshake, which is where she ended up finding the post for Wang, Leonard, Condon & Seyfried.
Bridget didn’t think the resume she made in high school was going to cut it, so she went to a drop-in appointment at the Career Center where she got help updating her resume and writing a cover letter to apply for this internship. Because she was a freshman, she didn’t expect to hear back from them, let alone get an interview, but she did. And once the interview was scheduled, Bridget came back to the Career Center to do a mock interview just an hour and a half before her actual interview. Along with preparing for typical questions, Bridget was warned to look out for curveballs, which turned out to be really helpful.
“When I arrived, my interviewer threw me for a huge loop!” Bridget says. “She noted that I was majoring in Spanish and my state seal of biliteracy on my resume; she suggested we conduct the interview entirely in Spanish. This was really scary and surprising for me, but I was expecting the unexpected. I was able to keep my cool and proved my Spanish skills to my interviewer.”
Bridget also received an Internship Plus award to help her financially during her unpaid internship. She applied secretly, not wanting to get her parents’ hopes up just in case she didn’t receive the award, but she did.
“When I was notified that I would be awarded the scholarship later in the spring, I surprised my parents with the news,” she says. “We were all really happy to receive the scholarship, especially considering the financial impact of COVID-19 on my family.”
Working at Wang, Leonard, Condon & Seyfried, many of Bridget’s coworkers are only a few years out of college and she sees this as a good example of where she could be when she graduates.
“I think as an undergraduate, it is common to imagine life after graduation as this mysterious abyss, and having my coworkers demonstrate what life might look like in five years is really helpful to me,” she says.
