The Finale

Today is my last day. Ten weeks came and went faster than I expected they would. In a few weeks school will be starting up and my senior year will be under way. The sooner the better. As I have expressed before graduation cannot come soon enough.

Interning is the best way to gain valuable experience in your chosen profession. Getting your foot in the door and learning the industry's "ins and outs" is priceless (literally). Now that I have logged over 600 hours as an intern I feel confident that I can hit the ground running once I graduate.

600 hours with a salary of $0/hour. Now add in travel expenses, lunches, happy hour tabs and the cost of tuition for the 9 credits I received and you get the meaning of sacrifice. I am happy I did it. It made me a better, yet "poorer" person.

I got a taste of what it will be like to be on the grind in Manhattan with a 9-5. I met people that will help me jumpstart my career and have already provided me with solid advice.

With that being said the system needs to change. Internships are necessary but what is not necessary is the University charging me the same rate for taking a class. My internship did not force them to put their hand in their pocket.

Colleges and Universities that encourage their students to participate in internships need to offer these credits at a lower cost while the employers provide a stipend for travel. If that is too much to ask, please, someone please prove me wrong. I realize that there are employers who do practice this but it should be part of the deal when the employer aquires an intern.

Wikopedia has a page that presents the different arguements.

Blogs have stormed the scene as the new form of media. This summer allowed me to dive into the process of using blogs to promote our client's new products and it is now somethin that I feel very comfortable doing. It was an experience that I couldn't get in a classroom. In fact, besides my 2nd level PR class where we used service learning to creat actual PR campaigns this internship has taught 10x more about public relations than any course I have taken.

Kim Hart of the Washington Post explained the new phenomenon in an article last Saturday. Blogger relations is a brand new avenue. Is it here to stay? Who knows but for the mean time those who have an understanding of it will have a leg up on those who do not.I heard a stat today that people in my generation will, on average, will spend 23.5 years of their life in front of a computer screen. Sad but true.

Remember the cake saga? You probably didn't find it all that funny but in the war room the soldiers had some good laughs over it.

Long story short, I finally got my cake. They missed my birthday and instead of giving me a send off lunch like past interns I got a cake. In reality, I dont want a cake. I especially don't want a cake at 4:30 on my last day when I was planning on saying my good-byes at 4:00. If I wanted ice cream I would treat myself to a waffle cone with chocolate and vanilla swirl from the Mr. Softee truck across the street. If I'm feeling like a recluse I may even get sprinkles. I wish I had a video camera for how silly these cake parties are. It's a shame that this is my last blog and I won't be able to tell you about the cake party dedicated to me.

I'm starting to ramble so I am going to break out on this note. I guess this means good bye. Good bye.

I haven't posted anything in a while. My bad. I must say that I have been noticeably busier. Like I said before that is a good thing. The intern staff has dwindled down to 2 1/2 soldiers so there is more work to be done. Time passes more quickly that way.

One week from tomorrow will be my last day for the summer. That gives me exactly 25 days between internship duties and school to relax down the shore.

Like a mentioned before I have been given the responsibility of placing a drag racing event that we represent into local calendar listings surrounding the race. It has been coming together nicely. In addition to pitching the races I also need to track down the papers they appeared in. That is proving to be more difficult that getting the papers to cover the event.

After I receive the clips I am also responsible for scanning them and editing them using photoshop. This is something that I had no idea how to do until last week so I can honestly say I learned something new. Which is the idea isn't it?

Alot of the other work consists of constructing media lists and tallying nielsen ratings to figure out equicalent ad value.

On another note. The City is the most disgusting place to be when there is a heat wave. I worked outdoors during a summer that saw the most 90 degree days last summer and didn't mind it as much as being in gross smelling Manhattan in sweaty dress clothes.

End date is August 10th. That will probably be the end of this blog too. This is my second internship and I don't plan on doing another for my senior year. As of matter of fact I dont plan on remembering my senior year. Maybe I'll get involved on campus. I'll make sure to post a farewell blog. As for the the small amount of people that have actually read this blog during its short life make sure to keep your eyes open for RockTheVoice.com. I'll explain more later.