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Journalism Internships:
Applying for ours or setting up your own
Applying
The journalism director takes applications in October for spring
internships and in March for summer and fall internships. You'll hear
frequent announcements in journalism classes and receive them by e-mail,
plus we post notices around the English building as the application
deadline approaches.
In addition to having taken the required
courses, you need clips (published stories) to apply for an internship.
So
start publishing in the student newspaper -- or anywhere else -- as
early as you can. Editors know that college is the easiest place on
earth to get your work published, so "Yeah, I like to write, but I've
never actually done it except for classes" is not going to cut it in an
internship interview. Working your way into an editing position at a
student publication is better still. If you're thinking, "I published
plenty of stories last year," we advise you to dig out those clips and
look them over. Chances are, they won't look so good to you this
year because your standards have risen. Publish new stuff you can be
proud of.
When you're deciding
where you'd like to do your internship, use your journalism
skills and do some reporting. Don't operate on assumptions or random
rumors; get the facts. Talk with the internship director and with
students who have done various internships, and see which places sound
most interesting to you. We try to accommodate students in the places
they want to go. We can't guarantee you your first choice, but you can't
make any choice unless you have the info.
Setting up your own internship
If you want to go to a newspaper, magazine, broadcast station or Web
site that UNH doesn't usually work with, you can set up your own
internship. See the Placement page for some
places to "shop" for internships.
How to set up your own internship:
First, get as much specific information as possible from the
company on what your duties will be and how many hours per week you will
work. For your own peace of mind, ask to talk to previous interns who
have worked there. (What the supervisor says that interns do may not be
the same as what they actually end up doing.) By the middle of the
semester before you want to do the internship, give the UNH
internship director all the information you've collected, plus specific
contact information so that she can talk with the person who will be
supervising your internship. We want to make sure you will be doing real
work, not busywork, and that you will receive training and support. Together, the
three of you will decide how many credits should be awarded for the
internship.
If you are applying for a UNH internship and also applying for other
internships on your own, you must include this info on your UNH
internship application. Be aware that you may face a collision of
deadlines if the non-UNH internship hasn't reached a decision on your
application by the time the UNH internships have to be settled. In that
case, you'll have to choose.
When you intern at a place where UNH doesn't usually send
interns, you're taking a chance. The internship could be absolutely
terrific, and many have been – in fact, some of our continuing
internships started with one UNH intern who went to that place and did
so well that the editors wanted more UNH students. On your own,
however, you might encounter editors who don't let you do any of the
things they promised in your interview. You're welcome to take the
chance if you've done your homework, and we'll help you in any way we
can. We just have to warn you that we have much less control over what
happens on a non-UNH internship.
Non-Journalism Internships
Our course, English 720, is titled Journalism Internship. We can give
credit under that number only for real journalistic work. Some students
have received partial credit for work at magazines, broadcast stations
and Web sites. A full semester of credit for internships at such
organizations is rare because they rarely want interns to do full-time
writing or editing. (For instance, magazine interns often do primarily
research and fact-checking, and TV interns tend to spend a lot of time
scanning newspapers and logging tapes.)
Any number of credits under
English 720 is enough to graduate with a journalism major, so if you
find a broadcast or online internship that wants you, definitely talk to
the journalism director about it. Note,
however, that most UNH grads who have gone on to magazine or
broadcasting careers started by doing a newspaper internship, which
broadcaster John Chancellor has called the world's best graduate
school. It’s simple: The more reporting and writing you do, the better
you get and the more clips you have to show.
The English Department also has a course numbered 620, Applied
Experience, through which you can get credit for all sorts of
non-journalism
internships -- such as book publishing, museum work, public relations for
nonprofit agencies, etc. -- that involve writing or editing. Pick up the
form in the English department, find any English faculty member to be
your adviser, and devise an academic component for the internship. (You
get experience from working; you get academic credit for thinking
about the work and doing additional reading to put it into context.) You
can arrange this type of experience directly with a company or through
listings maintained by the
Advising and Career Center at UNH.
An English 620 internship does
not qualify you to graduate as a journalism major, but it's a great
chance to sample other uses for your writing and editing skills.
Many journalism majors do a news internship under English 720
and some other kind of internship under English 620 as well. Definitely aim to graduate with as well-rounded a resume as you can.
If you manage to secure a journalism
internship before you've taken journalism courses at UNH, you have the
option of using English 620 to get credit. See above for info. This
can't be the official journalism internship for your major because that
course, English 720, requires a B in English 621 and English 622. But
again, all experience is good experience, and English 620 allows you to
get credit. You can also use 620 if you get another internship after
you've already done English 720 for 16 credits (the max allowable). |
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