Internships provide our students with the opportunity to build on the foundational knowledge the receive in the classroom and create a framework of real-world experiences that make them more attractive to future employers. They also help the student gain a better understanding of the various pathways they can travel as they begin or continue their career journey. For employers, the benefits include greater access to talent, and the ability to begin training future employees earlier in the process. Joan Koerber-Walker, W.P. Carey Executive MBA, 2000
Cronkite at ASU gave me countless opportunities to interview and intern with highly reputable organizations across Arizona. Though students find paid opportunities to be more appealing, I went after unpaid ones in the beginning of my Cronkite career as I found those to be more valuable in terms of experience. My very first (unpaid) internship through Cronkite was at Evolve PR and Marketing, where I worked for two semesters. If it wasn't for my time there, I wouldn't have learned how to build social media strategies or even collaborate with a diverse range of clients. I felt that I was also given room to make more impact and also make the role I had there special. I took a lot of the skills I learned from my time at Evolve and used them at my various roles doing content strategy for CapCut, Amazon and Meta (where I work now)! Journalism and Mass Communication, Class of 2022.
Internships are the best way to dive into your field and learn what you want or don't want to do with your career. As an intern, I discovered I wanted to shift my career focus from journalism to marketing, but I had a range of experience (including working for a small-town newspaper, writing for a magazine and curating social media profiles at the agency level and corporation level). I got the chance to attend meetings, meet with executives and broaden my network of fellow interns to experience what it would be like in the full-time working world in the field I wanted to pursue. My internship experience wasn't 100% journalism-related, but I realized I could apply what I was learning at the Cronkite School to different fields, such as marketing, and my internships helped build my resume up to create a well-rounded foundation for my career path. - Journalism & Mass Communication, 2016
My internships played an essential role in growing my confidence as a public relations and communications professional. While my professors at ASU provided me with the hard skills to be competitive in my field, my internships gave me those soft skills that made me stand out as each year passed. I knew how to conduct some intense PR research or put together a thoughtful pitch in a timely manner, thanks to classes at the Cronkite school. However, my first internship at KB Woods gave me the space to work with actual companies and media members and secure those first wins and my first fail. Those experiences showed me I knew what I was doing and that I could learn and improve my work to be even better. From there, I interned at OXO in NYC for the summer and grew under some of the most incredible people! When I came back from NYC to finish my master's program at Cronkite, I was able to take all of these undergrad internship experiences and apply them to an internship with the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee. I am the professional I am today because of every single one of my internships. Cronkite BA 22/MCC 23