Media students apply classroom skills to internships across the country

Several Media students put the skills they learned in the classroom to good work this summer, applying their course knowledge to on-the-job training. At internships across the country, students gained valuable lessons that will help provide them with future academic and professional success. Here are just a few student experiences: 

Vivian La 
Reporting Intern/Asian American Journalists Association Intern with Chicago Tribune 

Vivian La, a senior in journalism, worked as a reporting intern with the Chicago Tribune, covering environmental issues such as the city’s poor air quality due to Canadian wildfires. La’s work also focused on climate change and how it has affected Chicagoans—from tick season to home flooding.

La also covered breaking news twice a week, including crime, weather, and various events. She had the opportunity to write about the Chicago Pride Parade and the NASCAR Chicago Street Race. In addition, La was able to write one of her favorite pieces of the summer about the first LGBTQ+ pride parade held in Petersburg, Illinois. 

La said she absorbed a lot of useful information from experienced journalists in the newsroom.

“There are a couple people who are on the younger side, who are just graduating college, but there are people there who have been nominated for Pulitzers,” La said. “Even just being in the office and listening to them talk to each other, or talk to me, or overhearing their phone interviews with people, you learn a lot just by sitting there and soaking in what people are saying to each other.” 

Trent Miles 
Business Affairs Intern with AppleTV+ 

Trent Miles, a junior in media and cinema studies, worked as a contract administration intern with AppleTV+ in Los Angeles. In his position, Miles assisted in three departments supporting a senior executive in charge of securing feature film deals. 

Due to the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, Miles had to work in the non-fiction programming department since production for scripted programming had stopped. Miles assisted sports executives in securing documentary deals by previewing submitted pitches and providing feedback on them.

A highlight of Miles’s time at AppleTV+ was being able to explore and find a passion for the non-fiction department. 

“I came in wanting to do something in scripted, and then when I found out that scripted is not doing anything because of the strike, I guess I just naturally fell in love with non-scripted,” Miles said.

Paris Baptiste 
Marketing Intern with Music for All 

Paris Baptiste, a second-year graduate student pursuing a master’s in advertising, spent her summer as an intern with Music for All, an event-based, nonprofit educational organization. She worked on several projects including research and creating social media posts. 

Baptiste enjoyed having the opportunity to attend a band camp for one week during the internship as well as the chance to work on a small team.

“Because it was a smaller nonprofit, it was a smaller team, and I felt very heard and listened to and like an actual part of the team, which was very valuable,” Baptiste said. 

As an undergraduate, Baptiste took ADV 290 (now ADV 201): Social Media and Personal Branding that was helpful during her time at Music for All. 

“That course presented ways to write content, how to find content, and that really helped when I was kind of stuck writing the same thing over and over again to post on Instagram,” Baptiste said. 

Nathan Lin
Sales Intern with Procter & Gamble

Nathan Lin, a senior in communication in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences who is also pursuing a media sales certificate in advertising, relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, this summer, where he joined Procter & Gamble as a sales intern. Lin assisted the fabric care division of the company to help increase profits and provided recommendations about product sales. 

Lin, who credits several advertising courses with giving him the skills he needed to be a successful sales intern, says the experience will help boost his growing professional career. 

“It was good work. I learned a lot,” Lin said. “I really learned how to sell and present. [I learned] it’s less about presenting and more about having a conversation with the buyer and being able to be persuasive and sell the products.” 

Editor’s note: If you had a summer internship, we’d love to hear about it! Media students are invited to share summer work experiences here. Media students are also invited to learn about career resources by making an appointment with Media Career Services. For more career advice, Media students can attend a Rapid Resume Review on September 11 and attend our virtual Media Career Nights held throughout the academic year.

—Faith Lee, Communications Intern