NICOLE CHIN | layout & design editor

Internships prepare you in different ways.

Anticipation for graduation feels a little like peering off the safe, stable side of the pool and into the deep end where we are about to jump. We’ve learned how to do school—how to get “As” on papers and cram for mid-terms. We’ve been shown respect from professors, grace from friends, and had the opportunity to learn in the context of our Christian faith. Anything to prepare for the shock of the “real world” is not only comforting but seems necessary.

Internships are necessary preparation for the “real world.” They take us one step closer to that pristine, Olympic-size pool and to feeling what the water is really like. We prepare to jump, standing back and holding our breath.

I prepared for the “real-world” pool with similar motions. As a bewildered, scattered freshman, I smelled the chlorine with an internship at University Relations. I knew I wanted a professional job in writing and this seemed the best place to swim.

The editors at UR were relaxed and fun-loving, compassionate and understanding. I knew from the moment I walked in, it would be a privilege. I was told during my first week if I was stressed out with school it was tolerable to miss work. I was in an atmosphere where school work and God came first—no questions asked.

During my two years there, I encountered nothing but grace in an environment where I was allowed to make mistakes. And I was neither penalized nor disciplined for it. They encouraged personal health over professional success.

Throughout those two years, I published online more than 25 articles and several dozen photos. I was given an opportunity to have great career experience in writing, photography, web design and public relations. Looking back on it, I was spoiled. I was never scolded, never berated and always printed. And when I was drowning in an “over my head” schedule, they accommodated my life and gave me grace.

These are the things that I have learned to value, most of it in retrospect, about my time at an on-campus internship. I was able to step into an internship knowing absolutely nothing. I was given a handbook, a style guide, and walked through how to be a UR intern. And while they didn’t hold my hand, they certainly walked me through probably the most important steps I would ever need to know—they took me out of the kiddy pool and led me to the pool of real life and eased me into the water. And for that I am grateful.

I spent last summer interning at ESPN the Magazine. On my first day, I was given a tour of the office, shown my cubicle (or penalty box, because that’s what it really was), and given a handful of assignments to finish—in the next four hours. I had to run downstairs, grab lunch from the deli across the street and finish my assignment before my supervisor finished his lunch.

I figured ESPN the Magazine would be even more glamorous—but it wasn’t. I did all the odd jobs that the junior designer (who really was another intern) didn’t want to do; I did all the odd jobs that the art directors didn’t really care to do; and I did all of the odd jobs I needed to do to succeed.

I was yelled at a lot. I cried a lot. I was put down a lot. I was mistreated. I was disregarded. It was horrible and wonderful; it was painful and amazing. It was the real world and it was as raw as it should be.

Thankfully, I had already dipped into the pool of real world—otherwise I probably would have drowned. My internship at UR helped me get the professional experience I needed. I learned the basics there—basics I was expected to know at ESPN.

There is a certain standard professional organizations expect and if it hadn’t been for my time at University Relations, I would have had to learn that the hard way.

My life at ESPN was very much “Devil Wears Prada”—a concise, silent supervisor who didn’t give details and who didn’t want questions asked. The experience was very opposite of the time I spent at UR. I think on-campus internships are valuable for that reason—they give you experience. They pay for swimming lessons. They value the extra time you have to spend in the kiddy pool to get your confidence up. They are comfortable when you say you’re too cold and too sick to swim that day.

The real world doesn’t care. The real world gives you two sick days and sometimes forces you to skip vacations and ignore your social life. The real world will make you swim with the algae.

At ESPN, I had to focus on myself and doing whatever I could to succeed. At UR, I got to focus on being the best person I could for the people around me. They both prepared me for the real world—in different ways—and the time I spent with each will always be valuable because of that.