News and Progress

Internships bring MU students closer to their dreams

Internships provide a larger classroom - and important connections - to students with big dreams to chase.

Feb. 4, 2005

At KOMU-TV, Zack Ottenstein has been a news reporter and anchor. As an ESPN intern, he learned more about television news behind the scenes by working in studio production. He was responsible for producing game highlights for use on SportsCenter and other ESPN shows.

At the age of 6, Zack Ottenstein of Chicago would mute the sound on TV basketball games, sit directly in front of the screen, and provide his own play-by-play commentary for the benefit of an imaginary audience. Being a professional sports reporter has been his dream for as long as he can remember.

Ottenstein stepped closer to that dream as a broadcast journalism student, reveling in the experiences he had at KOMU-TV, the nation's only university-owned commercial TV station that uses its newsroom as a working lab for students. Even then, Ottenstein felt he needed to get closer to the action, to learn more about sports coverage outside of school. The perfect solution was landing an ESPN internship, established by SportsCenter co-anchor John Anderson, BJ '87, with matching funds from the Walt Disney Co.

“I was learning what it's like at the networks, what the environment out there is,” Ottenstein says. “The experience was heightened because they really gave interns opportunities to interact with leaders of the company, to learn how they grew, how they reached their position, how we could get there.”

Internships have become increasingly important for young people looking for employment. A survey conducted by Vault, a career counseling company, found that about 80 percent of graduating college seniors have held an internship; a decade ago, about 60 percent had held an internship.

Besides providing hands-on experience and a great résumé item, an internship can help a student get a foot in the door. In 2004, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 84 percent of companies, nonprofit groups and government agencies offer internship programs, and about 45 percent of those employers hire former interns to fill full-time staff positions. Small wonder, then, that competition for well-placed internships can be fierce.

But accepting an internship can be an expensive proposition, too. Vault estimates that only half of internships offer a salary or a small stipend. Internships in particularly competitive fields, such as politics and journalism, are more likely to be unpaid positions. Some critics argue that these unpaid internships create barriers for economically disadvantaged students trying to get ahead. Eschewing income from a summer job in favor of a prestigious but unpaid internship can be difficult if you depend upon those earnings to help pay tuition.

That's why university stipends and internship programs are so important. They make internships available to talented students who might not otherwise be able to afford the opportunities they present. Christina Caron, a School of Journalism graduate student from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., received the David Kaplan Fellowship, which allowed her to spend the fall 2004 semester working for ABC News in Washington, D.C. The Kaplan Fellowship was established by friends and colleagues of David Kaplan, an ABC News producer killed by a sniper in 1992 while on assignment in Bosnia. As a Kaplan fellow, Caron worked in both radio and television news production.

Now, she is considering a career as a field producer for a TV news magazine. And in addition to giving Caron a host of invaluable professional experiences, the fellowship provided her with a $10,000 stipend, which Caron appreciated greatly. “I probably wouldn't be in journalism school at all if MU didn't have fellowships or some sort of graduate assistance,” she says. “The stipend made it possible for me to travel to Washington and live here for three months. It definitely helped out quite a bit.”