Every semester SUNY Old Westbury media and communications students gain valuable work experience through internships. They learn new and appropriate skills and gain knowledge, preparing them for jobs. But the reality for many is far away from what they were expecting, as for many students finding a job after graduating is not easy. That is why SUNY OW students need to consider doing internships as career investments that can help them explore employment opportunities after graduation.
Employers and organizations across the country offer internships to provide students with career-based learning experiences that involve a real work environment and workplace expectations. According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), seventy-three percent of employers encourage colleges to emphasize the ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-world settings through internships.
Professor Karl Grossman
“Internships provide an opportunity for a student to learn about the area of their interest from the inside,” said American Studies/Media and Communications Professor Karl Grossman, who began and supervised internships in journalism at SUNY Old Westbury forty years ago.
Since he initiated the internship program, more than 3,500 journalism students have participated. This semester thirty-one students are taking part.
“At the start of every semester, I devote a good part of my first or second classes in the courses I teach in journalism to detailing what our internship in journalism program is about and answering questions,” he said.
Professor Grossman encourages his students to do more than one internship, and he also helps to find a place for them. “There is an enormous number of media outlets on Long Island,” he said. “I suggest media and communications students take both a ‘small’ internship on Long Island and a ‘big’ internship in the city…an internship also allows students to network…..which can be very helpful in entering the field.”
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employers reported that about forty-four percent of their class of 2009 hires came from their own internship programs. In addition, the study also found that 42.3 percent of the seniors who had internship experience and applied for a job received at least one job offer. When OW college students perform well as an intern, employers or organizations may offer them a permanent role after graduating, or at least offer a good reference to help them job hunt.
There are many success stories. To name only a few: After serving an internship at MSNBC’s AM Joy, Arlyn Sorto became a graphics production assistant for the show.
Arlyn Soto
Selena Hill is digital editor at Black Enterprise magazine.
Larry Lawson had an internship at WCBS-TV in New York. He did well and then, as Professor Grossman remembered, he called Professor Grossman and told of being offered a job—but working in the mail room at CBS.
“He spoke of not wanting this, of seeking to be a producer,” Professor Grossman recalled. “I advised him to take the job as a ‘foot in the door.’ He said that even though but a mail clerk, he was noticed—and taken under the wings of 60 Minutes’ Ed Bradley and Andy Rooney. And in short order, this young man ‘from the projects in Brooklyn,’ he noted, became a producer at CBS, then moving on to CNN, Black Entertainment Television and ESPN, and is now news and coordinating producer at the New England Sports Network.”
Molly O’Callaghan, a media and communications major, said that she learned about an internship program through her OW advisor, who told her that she needed a number of internship credits in order to graduate.
O’Callaghan did a four credit internship this previous summer at Fishbat Media, a digital marketing agency in Patchogue. After completing her internship, she was hired for a part-time position and plans to transition to a full-time position upon graduation this December.
“[An] internship is a really important thing to do,” she said. “Because it creates the opportunity to have relationships wherever you are interning and can possibly help open up the door for employment there.”
Not all SUNY OW students are aware of the importance of taking advantage of internship programs offered by the college, and some graduates wished they had known about interning and had done an internship.
“I have a degree in criminology, but I work a part-time job as an assistant at a daycare center,” said former SUNY Old Westbury student, Deanna Parasco. “I feel disappointed.”
Parasco received her degree in criminology in 2018 and is a first-generation college student. She had hopes of becoming a detective; however, after graduating, she did not know how or where to apply for jobs associated with her major. Doing an internship probably would have provided Parasco with some knowledge about her field of study.
“When I was in college, I really focused on passing my classes and completing my work,” Ms. Parasco said. “I only spoke to my advisors and they never told me what I should do besides choosing my classes.”
Dr. Denise Cummins, a research psychologist, emphasizes the importance of a student’s involvement in a workplace.
“In order to be prepared for the workplace, students need to spend more time exploring work environments,” Cummins said. “The lecture and exam format that dominates academia may be the gold standard for knowledge acquisition, but it renders students ill prepared to make use of that knowledge in a dynamic workplace.”
Internships play a vital role in helping students figure out their career plans, which means students need to look around and find what works for them. Professor Grossman said his Antioch College internship at the Cleveland Press in Ohio had inspired him to become an investigative reporter. The newspaper had a motto: “Give light and the people will find their own way.”
He added: “I was impressed by the investigative reporters at the newspaper documenting instances of corruption, danger, abuse and other social injustices, and then seeing a resolution — half the time — because of what was published, caused me to want to become an investigative reporter, which I became.”
Professor Grossman said, “Whether it’s media and communications or accounting or any other field through applied or experiential education, OW students will gain in an internship a great way to learn more about her or his major.”
