Journalism Careers: Do Internships Really Matter? (Part 1)

Most colleges have some sort of internship requirement - especially in a journalism or a communications program, where a lot can be learned by being in the field. In some ways, internships can give you more knowledge than you can get by acing tests or writing perfect papers. More so than most classes I’ve seen, internships can help you determine where you want to go - and in some cases even help you get there.

Journalism is a little bit different than a lot of other majors or careers in that you truly learn by doing. Sure, you need to know the legal implications and restrictions placed on your work, the easiest and best ways to go about digging for and producing a story, and more than likely you need some post-high school grammar re-enforcement. But there are a lot of technicalities you probably don’t need to go through, that people in other majors might. You don’t need to sit in class learning complex, inter-dependent formulas - like business majors - or studying how to adjust your accounts payable and receivable - like accountants - or dissecting frogs or brains or whatever - like biologists or pre-med students.

The classes that prove to be the most helpful for journalism students (and a lot of the other arts-related disciplines) are hands-on. That’s why you can be served so well by having an internship. This is not to say there is no academic merit in higher level learning when it comes to journalism or communications. College is the new high school, and that in and of itself is enough to drive home the importance of a collegiate education, not to mention the things noted above. What you can learn in an internship is invaluable, and perhaps even more precious than that are the contacts you make while you’re interning.

*alexis (10thfloorpr.com)