{"id":6564,"date":"2015-12-09T11:00:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/?p=6564"},"modified":"2018-08-22T10:17:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T14:17:23","slug":"follow-the-yellow-brick-road-internships-and-the-road-to-professional-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/2015\/12\/09\/follow-the-yellow-brick-road-internships-and-the-road-to-professional-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow the Yellow-Brick Road: Internships and the Road to Professional Success"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Megan<\/a>
Megan Burpo, Virginia Tech University PRSSA Chapter member.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The summer internship: every college student\u2019s biggest dream and worst nightmare. Interning is presented to college students as the next step in building your resume to prepare for the job market, or as I like to think about it, the next step down the yellow-brick road to the Emerald City, the capital of \u201csuccess.\u201d With the checklist mentality often adopted by the millennial generation, the coveted internship has slipped into a line on a resume instead of a launch into independence and maturity.<\/p>\n

I knew that this summer was the year I was supposed to find the perfect internship, make the right connections and ultimately be hired after my senior year. In one of many late-night panics I came across a D.C. start-up that was looking for a public relations intern. The description sounded interesting, the interview went fantastic and the proposed projects gave me more creativity and experience than any coffee-fetching intern could have hoped for. I was excited for the opportunity and the ability for my peers and future interviewers to be impressed by me. I was on my way down the yellow-brick road.<\/span><\/p>\n

With three heel clicks I was off in my pencil skirt and ruby red slippers toward my new internship.The first day on the job can be a little overwhelming; you have new people to meet, a new routine to grasp and a computer login that never works. This first day however came with the realization that I, a third-year public relations student, was the entire public relations team, the sole leader of the company\u2019s rebranding efforts and the organizer of their first major event.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I got over the shock of this responsibility, my boss was busy giving me the login to social media, the domain to the website I was to create and the media contact list to improve. I wasn\u2019t learning by observing, I was teaching. I wasn\u2019t giving an opinion for practice, I was giving an opinion that affected the success and future of this start-up and its nonprofit clients.<\/span><\/p>\n

The D.C. metro\u2019s inability to run on time gave me a chance to comprehend just what I had gotten myself into: advising a nonprofit with no prior public relations efforts. I fished through my class notes, textbooks, past internship materials, researched new articles and prepared to pull my weight. Two and a half months later the company succeeded in all of its rebranding, website and event goals. <\/span><\/p>\n

The internship forced me to learn a lot about nonprofit public relations very quickly. I made mistakes; I winged-it; I was frustrated; I loved it. I was forced to open my eyes to what an internship is: a trial run of the not-perfect and ever-changing real world. I wasn\u2019t surrounded by a bounty of talented public relations professionals but by innovative peers from diverse backgrounds. Maybe my resume doesn\u2019t show a top agency but it shows a level of authenticity I didn\u2019t know existed within thirteen weeks. I am proud of my education, extracurriculars and experiences; but I am most proud that my road leads to the Emerald City, the capital of \u201cdedication.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Be sure to visit the PRSSA Internship Center<\/a> if you are looking to add experience to your resume.<\/p>\n

What are some of the most rewarding internship experiences you have had during college?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span>
\nMegan Burpo is a senior public relations major and professional writing minor at Virginia Tech. You can connect and see more of Megan’s writing on <\/span><\/i>LinkedIn<\/span><\/i><\/a>, or she can be contacted at <\/span><\/i>meganb93@vt.edu<\/span><\/i><\/a>. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The summer internship: every college student\u2019s biggest dream and worst nightmare. Interning is presented to college students as the next step in building your resume to prepare for the job market, or as I like to think about it, the next step down the yellow-brick road to the Emerald City, the capital of \u201csuccess.\u201d With the checklist mentality often adopted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2894],"tags":[76,28,363,178,1115,1794],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6567,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6564\/revisions\/6567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}