Internships

Internships can be completed in your junior and/or senior year. We recommend that you complete an internship in the final semester of your senior year.

If you plan on receiving academic credit for your internship, you must apply for credit before the deadline in the semester you wish to receive credit for. You can not apply for credit after an internship has been completed.

You must have a cumulative GPA of 2.75 or higher to register for internship credit.

An internship builds on what you’ve learned in class. Before applying, you should have completed several sports communications, public relations, journalism, or production courses related to your desired internship. For example, you can’t be approved for a video production internship if you haven’t taken any video production classes.

Public relations students and strategic communications students have additional prerequisites:

• PR 201- Intro to PR
• PR 301- PR Campaign Strategies
• PR 300- PR Writing, or MEDIA 300, and 300L- Media Writing with Lab
• PR 351- Media and Social Media Strategies

Many opportunities advertised as internships are actually volunteer or contract work. They ask students to work independently, using knowledge and skills they already have, often without pay. At a legitimate internship, interns work with an experienced supervisor who instructs, mentors, and supports them as they learn new skills and gain valuable experience. Therefore, we do not approve internships that ask students to serve as campus representatives or ambassadors, or to complete work not currently undertaken by the organization.

Here are some examples of non-legitimate internships:

• independently overhauling a website for an organization without a webmaster
• creating social media accounts and establishing a social media presence for an organization that doesn’t currently use the social media requested
• independently creating media content such as blogs, articles, and/or video for publications or outlets
• promoting or distributing products on behalf of an organization
• door-to-door sales

You register for internship credits in the same way as regular classes, with the same associated costs. Part-time students pay by the credit. For full-time students, internship credits are part of their normal load. If the internship credits push a student’s credits to “overload” (more than 17 credits), overload fees will apply.

You register for internship credits in the same way as regular classes, with the same associated costs. Part-time students pay by the credit. For full-time students, internship credits are part of their normal load. If the internship credits push a student’s credits to “overload” (more than 17 credits), overload fees will apply.

• High-quality Internships. You will benefit most from internships that are related to your professional goals. Try and find an organization where you will work with local, national, or international professionals who have both formal education and a proven professional track record. We’d like you to learn from the best and to have respected organizations on your resume when you graduate.
• Established organization. An organization must have the means to instruct, mentor, and support an intern. Organizations that have been established for a minimum of 3 years are more likely to be able to provide this necessary support. Therefore, start-up organizations are not eligible to provide internships.
• Qualified supervisor. You need a formal, designated internship supervisor. The supervisor should be able to instruct and mentor you as you learn. If your supervisor knows less about the area than you do, quality learning is highly unlikely. Therefore, supervisors must have either:
  • A degree in field related to the internship and 3-years full-time post graduate experience in their current capacity
  • Seven (7) or more years of experience in their current capacity if they do not hold a degree.
• If this is the first time they are supervising a Media Department intern, we may request a copy of their resume.
• You will be asked to provide the supervisor’s professional contact information, job title, education, and related employment history for verification. We will not approve supervisors who cannot provide a phone number and email address clearly associated with the organization providing the internship.
• New learning opportunity. You may not do the same internship twice, just like you can’t take the same class twice. In addition, you cannot complete more than one internship with a particular organization. You will learn more working with a new organization than you would by working with the same one a second time. This also means that you may not complete an internship where you are or have been employed.