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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2003-05-05
Homework Assignment: An Internship Next Summer, or Else!
By Jim McNay, Brooks Institute of Photography
This is the assignment: By the end of next summer, you must have completed an internship or an assistantship.
(See other posting on SportsShooter.com to understand the difference between the two. In brief, interns work in a media company with lots of employees; assistants work for a photographer who may or may not have very many support staff in the company. Both experiences offer excellent opportunities to expand one's understanding of photography and business.)
Note: There was going to be an exception for those students currently in their first photography class. But never mind: You folks need to crank it up and get an internship too!
Most universities are on something like a three-semester schedule: Fall, spring, and summer. Most students take the summer off from school.
That summer break is your traditional internship window. That is the "internship season" when publications across the nation expect to have interns and the budget for them.
The traditional time to beginning applying for summer internships is in January after returning from the holiday break. Students can continue the hunt right up to the time when they have to take that night manager's job at Pup and Taco on June 1 in any given year.
Why the urgency for internships? There are lots of reasons. Perhaps the best one is, Everyone Else Who Can Get an Internships Is Doing One.
In short, the students at j-schools and state universities around the country are chasing internships every summer, assuming they want to advance up the ladder of opportunity with some speed once they get out of school. They are doing internships at small publications in their first summer. After that they seek to move up to larger or more interesting publications in succeeding years.
To be In the Game, and perhaps to have a portfolio that is competitive with your peers, students want to get into the working environment as often as possible while in school.
In music, they would say, "Hey, man, go do gigs!"
In theatre, they'd say, "Get into a show."
Internships are the equivalent in photography and journalism.
It is understood that attempting to intern every year may be inconvenient for many. Students may feel compelled to take a job to make Real Money for school; parents want to take students on vacation; students themselves may feel the need for a break, a chance to explore Europe or South America for the first time.
For best results, students should resist the temptation if they want to move into the best possible jobs and freelance opportunities after school-unless one is dying to work in Scooba, Mississippi or Scapoose, Oregon. Internships offer some of the most rapid growth and some of the best networking possibilities available. They are about the best thing one can do to grow as a photographer.
Besides, Europe and South America will be there after graduation.
Part of the good news is that there are ever more opportunities during what we might call the traditional fall and spring semesters. That is, internships are no longer primarily a summer possibility. When students start their research they will find an increasing number of excellent internship opportunities offered year around.
Because assistantships are with individual photographers (often working in the more commercial ventures than straight-ahead photojournalism) these opportunities also are not limited to summer. Any season is the season to seek an assistantship with a photographer for whom the student wants to work.
Bottom line: It's time to get cranking on the Great Internship Hunt. Students on top of their game will return to campus next fall having completed an internship this summer.
Photographers, particularly those in school or seeking to break into the photojournalism, are welcome to send ideas for future columns to Jim McNay at jim.mcnay@brooks.edu.
Questions about getting started in photojournalism that might be answered in future columns are also welcome.
Related Links:
Jim McNay's Member Page
Brooks NPPA Student Chapter
Brooks Institute of Photography
Related Email Addresses:
Jim McNay: jmcnay@brooks.edu
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