Currents
Summer Interns Make Waves at Potomac
Potomac’s Internships Provide Opportunity to Make a Lasting Impact
Each fall throughout college, I’d reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in a few months and ask, “how was your summer?” I always expected to hear about interesting new experiences, changed perspectives, brains stormed and oceans boiled, etc.
Instead, I usually heard some version of the following: “Oh it was good, I had an internship. It was pretty chill, a little boring – I took notes for a few meetings and had a small project that lasted about a week – otherwise, I mostly just showed up.” I spent my college summers working at a youth camp, so I always said “nice, that sounds relaxing!” while thinking “wow, that sounds terrible!” It wasn’t until I got to Potomac that I realized an internship can be so much more than the tedium reported by my friends.
How to Have a Better Summer
Every year, Potomac invites a bright group of rising college seniors to contribute fresh perspectives, work on engaging, self-driven projects, and test drive a career in management consulting. Our summer interns work at our office in Arlington, just outside Washington D.C., learning the ins and outs of the life sciences industry and developing healthcare compliance experience. Through Potomac’s internship program, they get the chance to gain insight and exposure to client‑facing work while also learning about the inner workings of a consulting firm.
Three Elements, One Big Impact
Potomac’s intern program team designs the summer experience around three mutually-reinforcing elements:
1) Client Tasks: Meaningful exposure to real world experience
Rather than staffing our interns solely on menial, day-to-day operations work or conceptual projects that will never see the light of day, we introduce our interns to Associate-level client tasks with managers who provide authentic, useful feedback. Typical tasks include retrospective auditing, drafting policies, and creating communications for clients. This work helps identify the intern’s strengths and clarify areas of interest quickly. Some lean into data analysis. Others shine in writing or working in PowerPoint. Everyone gets enough variety to learn and explore what they enjoy and where they want to grow.
2) The Individual Project: Own a piece of Potomac
Each intern develops and presents a standalone project that advances a firm resource. They take a deep dive into Potomac’s capabilities and ways of working. This summer’s projects included developing AI-centered resources for Potomac’s Launch Pad policy toolkit, synthesizing improvements to our Retro Monitoring framework, and exploring uses for a new eLearning tool. Through the individual project, interns get the opportunity to build project management experience, show off problem solving skills, and learn to present their own recommendations. At the end of the summer, interns can point to the workstream they’ve owned, see a finished product, and say, “I built that.”
3) The Team Project: Learn together, build together
Potomac’s approach to hiring requires individuals that can not only contribute independently but also work well as a team. Our HR leaders seek to build a well-rounded group that can share credit and solve problems together. Throughout the spring, our management team prioritizes a key project for our interns to work on together based on the company’s annual goals. This summer, our interns built an externally-facing SharePoint site that organized Potomac’s intellectual property into a format that can be viewed during sales meetings and mimics the way a client could roll them out. The team worked closely with senior leadership to define the scope, set the requirements, carve out roles, and align on a clean information architecture. This year’s finished product demonstrated the impact that can come from a cohesive, focused group of interns.
What Can a Potomac Intern Expect?
Potomac interns learn how compliance teams operate and why it matters to life sciences companies. You will work on real projects with immediate impact. You will write, analyze, iterate, and present. You will get frequent feedback from experienced managers who want you to succeed. If you like solving messy problems, ask good questions, believe feedback is how you learn, and finish what you start, you will thrive here.
Ready to Apply?
Potomac is looking for current juniors for Summer 2026 internships who can bring curiosity, initiative, and excellence to the world of healthcare compliance. If that describes you, submit an application today!
A Note for Employers
For our clients and friends who run or are evaluating an internship program, consider this three-part model. Develop a clear, learning-oriented structure and balance exposure to future job-related tasks with special projects. Add frequent feedback throughout the process. This generates a concrete impact on your organization and meaningful positive outcomes. You will have an opportunity to evaluate future candidates based on individual accomplishments and whether they can operate well as part of a team.