Internships are available at a many media companies and independent and educational media services in New York City and around the world. Recently, our graduate students have interned at: NBC, CBS, ABC, VH-1, MTV, GLAAD, Telemundo, Miramax, Universal, and Bertelsmann.
The Media Studies department recognizes the crucial role of
internships in a student's professional
development. The value of
internships is to gain relevant experience and get a realistic perspective on the industry and job market. The internship experience also provides
a student with a more informed perspective that supplements in-class learning and can help in building networks and contacts for the eventual job search.
It is expected of graduate students that the internship
experience be of a quality and caliber more advanced than the typical
undergraduate experience. Graduate
interns must be directly involved with the business or production work of an
organization, and their daily tasks must be of a nature that utilizes their
broad skill-set and talents for the greatest benefit of both the organization
and the development of the intern. The department posts vetted internship opportunities in its weekly blog.
The blog is password protected for Media
Studies MA student population. You
will receive digested updates and password reminders weekly via your New School
email account.
You are also, of course, welcome to pursue your own opportunities. Many companies advertise internships on
the HR/employment portions of their websites. There also are a multitude of external websites and
job aggregators that are devoted to assisting students with their search.
Requirements
All for-credit internship proposals must be submitted to the Director for Student Affairs before the start of the
term of employment. In most cases
this will require 2-3 business days to turn around. Once the internship and terms of employment are approved,
the student will be granted permission in Banner and will receive a course
registration number with which to register. A student can then register online through my.newschool.edu or in
person at the registration office with an advisor-signed add/drop form.
Please
note: Since the internship is set up for variable credit, it is essential that
you select the number of credits for which you intend to register or else the
system will default to 1 credit.
It is also imperative that you specify on the contract whether the
internship is to be research or production-based, as well as the number of
credits you propose to take.
Upon completion of the student's agreed term of employment
(terms of employment should generally mirror semester start and end dates)
the student will need to submit a summary reaction paper on the experience (see
guidelines below). In addition,
the intern's on-site supervisor must submit a supervisor evaluation. This form can be emailed, faxed, or sent via
post. Due date for both the
summary paper and the supervisor evaluation is within 10 days of internship end
date (or within 5 business days of the end of the semester – whichever comes
first). Both the paper and
evaluation must be received in order for a student to receive a grade and
course credit for the experience. Internships are graded on a pass/fail
basis.
Guidelines for the
Summary Paper
The paper should be 8-10 pages, double spaced. The objective of the paper is to be a critical thinking
exercise for the students, one in which they can reflect upon their experience
and the impact it can have on their future.
The final paper should:
- Describe the mission of the organization at which the
internship was undertaken, and identify and characterize the company's role in
the industry.
- Describe the governance/administrative/operational
structure of the organization, identify the division or department with which
the student has been working, and briefly describe its purpose.
- Discuss the rationale for its location within the
administrative structure.
- Briefly recount the purpose, focus, and content of the
project.
- Summarize the day-to-day duties of the internship.
- Specify how the internship experience informed your
education (and vice versa).
- Outline the trajectory of the industry.
- Restate your learning objectives and discuss the degree of
success you had in achieving them. (Were there any special skills you learned?
How was your knowledge base expanded?
What did you learn about the organization/field that can assist you in
going forward?)
- Describe what contacts you made - or how you can leverage
this experience in your professional development.
Additional Notes
During the course of the 39-credit MA program a student is entitled to
take up to 6 credits of internship.
This breaks down to 3 research-based credits and 3 production-based
credits. The department is
sensitive to the varying time and financial commitments of our students, and we
have made concessions to open the internship experience to a wider field.
We recognize that paying for credit in
order to take on a work experience that is often unpaid can present an undue
hardship for a student. We have
made strides to lessen the burden by both lowering the credit total (and
thereby the tuition cost) for participation in internships; and offering to
write departmental letters of support in cases where a student has an internship opportunity, but does not
want to take it for credit. If you
are in the latter situation, we encourage you to stop in or call the department
and speak with the student services professional. We do our best to work with the given situation and our
first concern is always the student.