What is an internship?
According to NACE, “An internship is a form of experiential learning that integrates knowledge and theory learned in the classroom with practical application and skills development in a professional workplace setting (across in-person, remote, or hybrid modalities).” Typically, a student will find an organization in a field closely related to their university studies or future career interests and work for them for a limited period of time, under the supervision of an internship site supervisor. Internships can take place during the academic year, or over the summer or winter terms. During an internship, a student will provide meaningful work to the organization, while learning transferrable skills and knowledge, and receiving guidance, feedback, and career mentorship from their site supervisor and other colleagues.
What are the requirements for enrolling and completing an internship?
- Internships can be completed at any time during a student’s academic career. Most students complete an internship during their third or fourth year after they have completed a majority of their coursework and feel prepared to transfer their academic experiences to the workplace. First and second year students may participate in an internship, pending advisor and faculty coordinator approval.
- Students must have a 2.0 GPA, overall and in the major, in order to participate in an internship for credit.
- FINDING AN INTERNSHIP: There are many resources offered by SUNY Oneonta and the Department of Communication and Media to help you find and secure an internship. Please remember that internships are NOT a requirement for completion of your Communication Studies or Media Studies degree. Thus, it is your responsibility to find and secure an internship that is a good fit for you, based on your interests, skills, experience, and future career goals. For more information about finding internships, please visit the Career Development Center and the Department’s Internships Teams page.
- APPLYING FOR ACADEMIC CREDIT: Once you have found an internship (i.e., you have applied and been hired) you then must complete and submit the SUNY Undergraduate Internship application. Please note, we cannot grant retroactive internship credit. You must get your application approved prior to partaking in an internship if you want to obtain academic credit for the experience. Instructions for completing and submitting this application can be found on the Career Development Center’s website and the Department’s Internships Teams page.
- EARNING ACADEMIC CREDIT: Once enrolled, student interns are required to maintain a weekly journal of their internship activities and respond to a set of weekly discussion questions. Students must also prepare a final reflection paper summarizing their experience at the conclusion of their internships. Your final grade is based on the quality of an intern’s performance in the following: your weekly journals, final reflection paper, and your site supervisor’s evaluation. All internship credits are graded as Pass/Fail. Please note, you must complete 40 hours at your internship site to earn 1 academic credit. Up to 15 credits of internship may be applied to your degree.
Where have Communication and Media students interned before?
Internship placements are available both locally (here on campus and in the city of Oneonta) as well as in your hometowns and abroad. It is up to you to locate and secure an internship, although the department has resources to help you find one that is right for you. Many different types of organizations and agencies work with student interns, including, but not limited to, those in the fields of digital and print media, public relations, advertising, marketing, sales and promotions, non-profit work, governmental work, and human relations. Some examples of where our students have interned in the past include:
Television: ABC Television, CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, FOX, HBO, MTV, PBS, WBNG, WRGB, NY1News
Recording Industry: EMI Records, Polygram Records, SONY, Warner, Island Def Jam
Public Relations: Bozell Public Relations, Rogers & Cowan, Grays, Putnam Berkley Group, The Bronx Zoo, Nat’l Baseball Hall of Fame, Bassett Hospital, Fox Memorial Hospital
Advertising/Marketing: KATZ Communication, DDB Needham Worldwide Advertising, McCann-Erikson, Nat’l Soccer Hall of Fame, Paintbucket
Print: DNR, Time Magazine, MAD, The Wall Street Journal, US, Penguin Books, DK Publishing, The Daily Star
Radio: WFAN Radio, WBAB, WZOZ, WBCI, WKTU
Public Service: Anti-Defamation League, Opportunities for Otsego, Mediation Services, and the American Cancer Society
Other companies: Laily Mesbah Digital (design and social media), Simon, Gluck & Kane, LLP (law offices), and the Otsego County Chamber of Commerce
Many departments on campus also seek interns from our department:
SUNY Oneonta: Office of Student Affairs, Center for Academic Development & Enrichment, Office of Student Experience, and the Admissions office
Tell me more about the work your students are doing!
Click on the banners below to learn more about some of our students' internships experiences.
Marleny Ramírez
Interned at the Communications Office of the National University of Costa Rica - Heredia Campus
Marleny Ramírez
In her own words: “During the Summer of 2018, I interned at a Communications Office at the National University of Costa Rica in the city of Heredia. I came across this internship through the SUNY-Study Abroad database, which listed a journalism opportunity through Projects Abroad. The extensive 12-week journalism internship entailed working alongside local journalists to help generate mass media content, ranging from newspaper articles to the production of newscasts. I was able to partake in writing articles for the newspaper in Spanish, of which 5,000 copies are distributed all over Costa Rica every month. I was also involved in the audio/visual and multimedia department, which produces weekly television programs, online news bulletins, and radio programs. Ultimately, this internship allowed me to gain an invaluable hands-on experience of how a communications office is run. The tasks that I was assigned were conducive to my growth as an aspiring broadcast and print journalist. Researching, fact-checking, proof-reading, interviewing, and organizing ideas effectively are all significant and crucial aspects of journalism (and at times tedious), which I have learned to see has an art in the developmental process of a news piece.
The most valuable experience that I received from this internship was writing articles and conducting interviews in Spanish, which has drastically helped me improve my linguistic skill-set. This opened up an entirely new professional window for me because I am no longer limited and confined to reporting in English. I feel a lot more confident writing, reading, and speaking Spanish, which essentially doubles my potential job opportunities as a bilingual broadcast journalist. Before I had completed this internship, my academic background in Mass Communications was enough for me to shyly envision myself working in the field post-grad. After completion, I was able to step out of my comfort zone and confidently foresee that I will work in this field. My internship supervisors and coordinators trusted me with work that I barely trusted myself with; they encouraged me to challenge myself, and for that I will be eternally grateful."
Read some of Marleny's writing here (in Spanish):
La política migratoria de EE.UU: entre mitos y contradicciones
Mujeres en la política costarricense: conquistas y pendientes
Darren Pikul
Interned locally on campus at the Division of Student Development
Darren Pikul
In his own words: "Over the course of the 2017-2018 academic year, I had the pleasure of serving as the Student Affairs Intern for the Division of Student Development on SUNY Oneonta's campus. I learned about this internship during the Fall 2016 semester. While serving in this capacity, I presented at the SUNY Undergraduate Research Conference, I helped plan the Harvey Delaney Leadership Institute and OH-Fest. Also, I served on various committees and task forces, and I just had a lot of fun. The best aspects of this were internship were the hands-on experience I got, and the chance to to dive into a career in higher education. Because of my experience in this internship, I will be attending Florida Atlantic University in the Fall of 2018 for a Masters in Higher Education."
Laura Varela
Interned at IBM
Laura Varela
In her own words: "I was placed in Corporate Media Monitoring, so my main job was looking over Google, Factiva, Yahoo Finance, CNBC News, and Bloomberg for any mentions of IBM. It was a lot of multitasking, as I had to set up these news articles and send them to the correct department (EG: news on Watson went to our Watson and Research group) while continuing to look over upcoming news. I also set up press releases, which helped a lot in terms of internal relations. I was given stories written for the IBM community (like our new IBM Z Mainframe), set it up to the correct publishing time, make sure there were no typos, and continually look for updates on our lead contact. The best part of this experience was the fact that the IBM community was so welcoming to all the interns. I even got a chance to sit down with Edward Barbini (who is VP for external communications), who even reviewed my resume and gave me some advice. I also got to meet Michelle Peluso, Jon Iwata, and even CEO Ginni Rometty.”
View her full blog post about the experience
Sydney Stern
Interned at Sony Music Entertainment
Sydney Stern
In her own words: “This summer, I interned at Sony Music Entertainment on the RCA Records Global Brand Partnerships Team. Brand partnerships facilitate opportunities for partnerships between brands and RCA artists. Some of these opportunities include music video product placements, ad opportunities, tour sponsorships, etc. The overall goal of the department is to partner artists with brands that work organically together and promote both parties’ interests and objectives. Working at Sony Music Entertainment has been an invaluable experience for my education and professional goals. Overall, this internship has definitely proved to be invaluable. Coming into this internship, I thought a had a decent understanding of, not only what the Global Brand Partnerships team does, but what happens in the marketing side of business as a whole. Turns out, my understanding of marketing was completely misguided. Everything is divided into small departments containing about 5 people. For example, there is a separate department for marketing and digital marketing, and A&R and A&R Research. Interning has allowed me a more thorough understanding of how a company is divided. More generally, I have learned a vast array about the music industry itself. This internship has given me integral insight into the production side of the music industry, and how much goes into each aspect of it.”
Connor Davis
Interned at Forbes Media
Connor Davis
In his own words: "In the summer of 2017 I was lucky enough to intern with Forbes Media in Jersey City, NJ. I found out about this opportunity through a family member who works at Forbes and after an interviewing process I started working with the Forbes Live and Insights teams the summer prior to my senior year of school. Forbes Insights is a thought leadership group that gives data analytics and market tendencies, discovered through surveys and data mining, to c-suite level leaders who want to gain a competitive edge on their competitors. Working for the Insights team, I assisted with generating ideas for surveys as well as programming and testing surveys before they are distributed. Forbes Live is a quickly growing team within the Forbes business, responsible for putting on events aimed at bringing together the greatest thinking minds and putting on amazing and impactful summits and conferences. A lot of my work with the Forbes Live team was about obtaining new sponsors for the various events that Forbes curates while also keeping good relations with pre-existing clients. I got to attend and help out at two of the Forbes Live events: the 'Forbes Women’s Summit' and the 'Forbes Under 30 Summit'. At these events, I was able to work with clients who were sponsors of the summit as well as listen to panels and speeches given by some of the most powerful and disruptive women and young people in their respective fields. Forbes gave me a great working experience and has even given me insight into professions that I can see pursuing upon graduating from SUNY Oneonta in 2018"
Riis Massey-Williams
Interned at Ketchum Sports and Entertainment
Riis Massey-Williams
In her own words: “I found the Summer Fellowship with Ketchum on LinkedIn. It was a rigorous job application. I applied with my resume and cover letter, and made it to the second round which was a gamified recruitment process. Once there I had two creative challenges, and I had to create my own campaigns. All other applicants then had the ability to comment and vote on their favorite creative campaigns, which were all anonymous to make it an even playing field. After two weeks of voting, and commenting on others, I came in first place out of 4,000+ applicants.
From there I had a phone interview with the SVP of Talent Acquisition, and then two subsequent interviews with two teams, consumer brand and digital. Eventually, I was offered the opportunity to be a digital Fellow. From there I spent 10 weeks in an immersive program meeting with senior executives, the CEO of Ketchum, and presenting a client facing creative campaign. After the 10 weeks were over, I had the opportunity to continue my internship with the Ketchum Sports and Entertainment, Influencer Division. After proving my knowledge on that sphere, and always offering a helpful hand, I was offered the role of Account Coordinator.
During the recruitment process, I regularly spoke with my Communications & Media teachers like Professor Stewart, Professor Sohns, and Professor Wickham for daily advice. Classes like Creating Persuasive Campaigns helped me create my own campaign and have something to discuss during the interview process. For my role now, my Senior Seminar class helped me gather insight into influencers and how they go through the process of creating good content for the internet. And of course my Public Relations course with Professor Welch helped me discover what Public Relations was all about, and why I wanted to explore the field. I think the skills I learned in the classroom were helpful, but also using my professors as resources of information not in a lecture setting were helpful as well."
Riis graduated from our department and is currently working at Ketchum Sports and Entertainment. Read an interview Riis gave to CBS New York about the gasified recruitment process.