Queens College Media Studies Internship Program

The last blog post before the semester ends is a chance for you to reflect upon your internship experience. Think about what you’ve done on the job and address the following questions:

There are a few important questions to ponder when you are finished with an internship: Is this a company, or type of company for which you could see yourself working full time? Would you like pursue a full time opportunity that is similar to your internship? Do you anticipate continuing in this field or do you feel that you may choose some other type of career path. Alternatively, if you have had a negative or discouraging experience, have you decided that this is career path that no longer wish to pursue? Do you feel that you are still interested in the field even if you would like to pursue a different type of position within that industry? Be as specific as possible in your response.

What is the single most important thing – good or bad – that you learned from this experience?

Were you able network as much as you had anticipated? If not, why not? Did you get a chance to learn about the industry and what types of jobs are available in it? Did you meet anyone with whom you feel you will be able to stay in touch?

Is this an internship, company or industry that you would recommend to your fellow Queens College Media Studies Students?

Feel free to add other thoughts, information or experiences you have that might not be specifically covered by the above questions.

Once again, please feel free to respond upon each other’s posts and provide insight and feedback.

Please post your answers in the comments section that follows this prompt.

If you have not already done so, please read the first chapter of the assigned textbook Careers in the Media. Once you have completed the chapter, which is an overview of the media industry landscape, consult the Table of Contents and find the chapters most relevant to your internships and to your careers (they might be the same chapter but it doesn’t have to be). Interspersed throughout the book are Personal Profiles where professionals describe their career paths and trajectories. Read a few of these, even if they are not directly related to your chosen career and current internship, as they provide useful background information and tips on how to find a permanent position. Once you’ve completed this part of the assignment, take a look at the Appendix B, which lists a number of helpful employment websites.

After doing the reading and reviewing the job search web sites, write an action plan for the next steps in your career based upon what you learned from the textbook and your own experiences. If you are graduating soon, what should you prioritize for the rest of the year in order to find a permanent full time position in the field? If you have a year or more before your graduate, what steps should you take to best position yourself to be successful and find an opportunity when you do graduate?

Please be as specific as possible and consider the following: what research will you need to do on companies in the field? How might you improve and enhance your resume? What might comprise a networking strategy that might help you find openings? Consider this part of the assignment to be a blueprint for the action plan that you will actually initiate before and upon graduation. (You may use numbers or bullet points as long as you have detail and complete sentences).

Once again, please to comment upon each other’s response and provide insight and feedback.

Please post your answers in the comment section that follows this post.

For your first blog entry, please provide a description of the company where you will be working and a link to their website. If the company is not specifically media related, please discuss its relationship to media (for example, its social media strategy or presence). What will your primary responsibilities be at your internship? What elements of the company or industry do hope to learn more about and is there one particular aspect of the company that intrigues you?

In addition, please post your thoughtful responses to the following questions:

1. What have you learned so far about working in the media that you did not know before your internship?
2. Have you discovered anything about the company and the media industry that is different from what you expected?
3. To this point, is the internship what you expected? If so, please describe what you expected and how it’s fulfilled your original conception of the job. If it’s not what you thought it would be, describe how it is different from what you anticipated?
4. What do you like most, so far about your internship? What are the valuable things that you have learned?
5. Is there anything that you feel would enhance or improve your internship to this point?

Please approach this posting as if it were a journal entry or informal short essay assignment for a course. It’s probably a good idea to compose your response in Word or Pages and then cut and paste it to the blog. It is imperative that you regard this as a course assignment, rather than busy work, as successful and conscientious completion of these assignments is part of your grade. While the blog is meant to be informal, and you may discuss whatever you would like in relation to the foregoing questions, please ensure that you utilize proper grammar, spelling and use a thoughtful, academic approach.

As this is also meant to be a conversation between your colleagues, please reflect upon each other’s responses in the comment section that follows this post. and provide insight and feedback for each other’s observations. Please do so in a courteous and helpful manner.