Many McIntire students spend their summers in offices, building resumes that set them up as strong candidates for consulting pipelines with major firms. Emily Bronstein (McIntire ’26) spent hers leading teenagers through mountain ranges in Colorado and trekking routes in the Italian Dolomites. No cubicles and no coffee runs, but by this fall, she’ll be taking on a full-time consulting role with Oliver Wyman in New York.
“I’ve never had any sort of formal internship at all. Never worked in an office,” Bronstein says. “I decided I was going to forego even trying to do an internship and just move forward with Moondance and then work full time.”
On the Trail
Her first summer started in Colorado, overseeing backpacking trips for middle schoolers with travel company Moondance Adventures. The next took her to Italy, leading a group of ninth graders. This summer, she will spend two months in Japan, running three consecutive 17-day trips for high school students.
Each trip begins the same way. She meets a new group at the airport, gathers them together, and sets off. For the next two and a half weeks, she is responsible for everything, from logistics to group dynamics to the overall experience. When one group leaves, another arrives, and the process begins again.
“You pick them up at the airport, you run the whole 17-day trip, you drop them off, and then you do it again,” she says. “You get to really have such a tangible impact on these kids’ lives.”
The work demands a different kind of accountability than you would normally find at most internships undertaken by Commerce students. In Venice, that level of responsibility came into focus as moving a group of teenagers through crowded streets and unfamiliar logistics left little room for hesitation. There was no supervisor to defer to and no set protocol to follow. “Having so many kids in a foreign country is stressful,” Bronstein says. “But instilling that sense of trust is a big thing in terms of making sure the trips run smoothly.” She had to read the group, manage competing needs, and make decisions quickly, all while keeping the experience meaningful.
But it’s the kind of challenge Bronstein relishes. “The opportunity to help create spaces where students feel challenged, supported, and celebrated is the reason I come back to lead Moondance every summer,” she says. “I’m forever grateful for the impact it has had on me, and for the chance to inspire that same growth in others.”
Building the Other Half
When she returned to Charlottesville, the setting changed, but the core challenge did not. As president of Enactus, a student organization that provides pro bono consulting to local businesses and nonprofits, Bronstein led teams working on real client problems. The work required the same awareness she had developed on the trail, understanding what people needed and where they could contribute most effectively.
“One of the biggest things I’ve learned is putting the right people in the right places in order to make an organization or a team run smoothly,” she says.
Her academic experience reinforced that approach. During a semester in Copenhagen, she studied under McIntire John A. Griffin Dean Emeritus Carl Zeithaml at Commerce partner school DIS, an experience she describes as formative. She later worked with him on case projects and served as a teaching assistant for strategy courses. In those roles, she found herself doing something familiar, guiding others while giving them space to grow.
“I think one of my favorite things about UVA is the mentality of older students helping younger students,” she says. “Being able to give back and help them shape their experience has been really rewarding.”
The New Trail
Over three years, Bronstein learned how to lead in environments where expectations were unclear and conditions could shift quickly. The setting was different from a traditional internship, but the skills were not.
“The more exposure you get to working with people in unique situations, the better you are at showing up in more mundane situations,” she says.
This fall, she will trade mountain trails for city streets. The terrain changes, but the instincts carry over. After years spent learning to navigate unfamiliar places, New York City will be another one, different in pace and setting, but familiar in its demand for adaptability, something at which Bronstein excels.
