Interning in New York
Some of the E-Media Division’s best students enter the program knowing how they want to end it---with one of the paid internships Procter and Gamble offers in New York City. E-Media Division Head, Manfred Wolfram, got the P&G Productions Summer internship started 14 years ago. Each year two outstanding students receive $6,000 for this three-month internship working on P&G soap operas in New York.
“It’s absolutely essential to the professional world,” said Dr. Wolfram, “you have to begin networking early.”
Networking is the best thing that senior Katie Jeffries got out of the P&G internship. Katie, now a senior, was one of the talented students to receive this award last summer. When she first heard of the award, Katie looked at her mom and said, “I will have that.” So she did.
“I thought it was so cool that E-Media would provide such an amazing internship,” Katie had the opportunity to work with the “longest run soap opera in history”, Guiding Light run by CBS. She did everything from being an extra in the background, to performing behind-the-scene work where she had the opportunity to meet some of the actors and actresses.
There is a combo of qualifications a student needs to meet in order to have the opportunity to intern in New York according to Dr. Wolfram, “We make sure the student has committed themselves to their major. We also want to see that students commit themselves to extracurricular activities.”
The second E-Media student to receive the award in 2008 is senior Sonya Mueller. Sonya worked with the soap operas As the World Turns and Guiding Light. She said she first heard of the internship as a freshman. “It’s been on my mind ever since”.
The students had free time to go shopping and soak up the excitement of The Big Apple. Sonya agrees that the contacts she made were invaluable. “I met a lot of great people. The people I worked with were super open. I got some great networking from it and I’m sure I’ll stay in contact with them for the rest of my life.”
Many of the interns who worked for P&G Productions went on to jobs there or at other media outlets in New York, according to Dr. Wolfram. The New York internship is just one of the paid opportunities offered to E-Media students each year. Paramount Pictures provided internships in Los Angeles for many years; Time Warner sends a student to CNN in Atlanta, and P&G funds a yearlong internship in Munich, Germany. There is also an excellent paid internship offered by Channel 5 in Cincinnati.
Written by Amanda Hayward, 12/2008
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CURRICULUM
