Brittany: COM-portunities

Brittany

The last time you heard from me, I was interning at Chronicle on Boston’s WCVB Channel 5. I told you all what a great experience it was for me, but the best had yet to come. By the end of the summer, my hard work earned me the opportunity to be an associate producer for a segment of a show! I came up with my own story idea, organized, planned, made contacts, filled out paperwork, and accompanied the crew on the day of the shoot—all the responsibilities of a real (read: salaried) producer. The episode aired a few days after I left for school, and it was the best way I could have ended my time at the station.

After Chronicle, I started working for New England Sports Network (NESN) in the fall. I’m a Boston Bruins/Hockey East Studio Production intern—a position I’m convinced is the best job in Boston. When the Bruins are home, I ride along to the Garden, where I do one of many things—learn how to run tech equipment from the truck, stage manage the pre-, post-, and intermission reports from the in-house studio, or stage manage the color and play-by-play commentators from their booth. After the game, I usually run tapes of post-game interviews from the locker room to feed them back to the office. There’s a lot of running around the Garden, but there’s no place I’d rather be on game day.

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of work for Hockey East. I was the time out coordinator for the Frozen Fenway games (check out the picture that Dean Sabovik took off of the TV that day!), and I’ve put in countless hours working on Beanpot features in preparation for the tournament in February. My internship at NESN is so multifaceted, I never know what to expect as I walk in in the morning. COM has given me the preparation to handle whatever is expected of me at any given time, and complete the task at a professional level.

Last semester, I applied and got into a class going abroad to London this summer to cover the Olympics with COM. Come next year I will have graduated, and I’m so thankful that I will be able to cap out my three years at BU with such an amazing work experience. You can read more about it here: http://www.bu.edu/com/2011/12/13/students-tapped-to-cover-olympics-in-london/.

The point of my post is this—everything that I talked about truly is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Through COM, I’ve had opportunities and experiences that many college students can only dream of. I’m happy to answer any questions about internships that you might have, and I look forward to sharing my contacts with the next batch of COM students!

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Richie: Internships through the Emma Bowen Foundation

Richie Duque
Richie Duque

Hey guys! I hope everyone is super excited to come to Boston this fall! You should all be proud and psyched to have gotten into the the best school at BU: COM.

I remember a huge reason I decided on COM last year was because of the security I felt I would have in finding a job after school. I’m sure many of you can relate to the fear of not finding a good job after college and as an aspiring film maker I can say that fear was ten times greater for me. I used to not be sure if I should chase my passion or just settle for a field with more jobs and better income. Yet, as I’m sure a lot of you will agree with, both COM’s film program and BU in LA program finally had me feeling comfortable with my choice in film.

Now, for all you interested in film, television, broadcast journalism, or any other media related job (which is basically anyone in COM), I highly, highly recommend applying to the Emma Bowen Foundation. If you’re looking ahead and thinking about getting a job in whatever communication related industry, then this program is definitely for you. EBF is a program dedicated to helping minorities break into the media business by setting them up with a four year internship. Students have an 8 week commitment to work for their corporate sponsor every summer that they’re in college. Some corporate sponsors even allow their interns to work throughout the year as well.

Each summer your department is changed so you can get a taste of different jobs in the industry. The benefit of having a secure internship every summer for the next few years is incredible, anyone will tell you. Also, you’ll be building a strong relationship with your company where many students earn a job afterward or, through their connections, find a job at a different company.

Oh yeah, and if you guys are curious about what companies participate in the program you can check them out here http://www.emmabowenfoundation.com/main.html. To give you and idea though, I work for Fox Television Stations, and have friends that work for HBO, NBC Universal, the YES Network, ABC, and many many more.

Some of you might be hesitant to give up eight weeks of your summer. Maybe you want to enjoy your summer, but just to remind you all, summer vacations in college are around three months so you’ll still have plenty of time to hang with friends. Plus, we all know the wisdom of working hard early in life to enjoy a comfortable, fun job, later in life. And if that doesn’t win you over, did I mention the internship is not only paid but also a scholarship program?! Now most people will tell you how insanely difficult it is to find a paid internship (even if it is only minimum wage), yet EBF has all its partnership companies give out matching funds at the end of every summer. So that basically means, if you dedicate yourself to working those 40 hour weeks for two months, not only will you have all the money you were getting paid, but the company will match your hard work! You do the math, 40 hours a week for eight weeks (getting paid $7.25) is over two grand!