The Reflex Blue Show with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery, Episode 6: Invisible Paycheck
Our complete guide to getting a graphic design summer internship. We welcome Design Princess Ashley McFeely back to the show, well, to the Reflex Blue Show, for the first time ever to trade old war stories of internships gone by. Tales of portfolio samples; tales of getting boned by other interns who hate you, and tales of that one guy who got hit by a car. We also give out a Top 5 tips on how to land an internship, so don’t think we forgot about you. A must for design students. Peace out —
–nv–
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I had the dubious honour of bypassing my internships during college in favour of Drexel University’s Co-op system. The Co-op is billed as “the ultimate internship”, because jobs last for 6 months, on-site, full-time and with pay! So by the time I graduated, I had 18 months of working experience with responsibilities that exceeded those of an intern.
However, when I graduated my old graphics teacher from high school set up an unpaid internship for me without telling me! He calls me up and says “hey, I got you an internship.” I wanted to say something like “thanks but no thanks”, but instead I sucked it up and did the slave work for a few days a week that summer. I did learn some things about theory and the workings of a mom-and-pop agency, although that gig didn’t provide any portfolio items. I would have liked to been able to say “I never worked for free”, because I feel no one should have to.
Thanks for sharing, this was a fun episode.
I skipped the internship thing in favor of the college’s work study program. Basically, they’d place you in a department related to what you were doing, and you’d work so many hours a week at minimum wage.
I was able to get a job doing the Alumni magazine’s web site. Great experience overall.
Thanks guys. I didn’t even go into this one thinking I’d tell the Intern-Hit-By-Car story, but you know, sometimes you just gotta go where the show takes you.
I got my internship that I am in right now through blogging… how cool is that?
I blogged about a cool piece they did and mentioned that they are from around where I live. The guy responsible saw that I linked to their site and wrote an email to thank me, we got talking about design school and he offered me an internship. I applied with my stuff and they took me.
I am also actually getting paid.. sweet :) and I got my own office with phone and desk and everything. I am totally on the lucky side with this one. Now let’s see how it goes. Two weeks down, 14 to go.