The best step toward a career

Internships are an excellent way to apply your classroom knowledge in a professional work setting, to network with professionals and to build your resume. Students enrolled in the School of Communications are required to complete one (1) credit hour of COM381 Communications Internship before they graduate.

In recent years, Elon students have been interns at Vogue, Saatchi & Saatchi, Ketchum, Young and Rubicam, National Geographic, ESPN the Magazine, Washington Post Interactive, MSNBC, 60 Minutes, the Baltimore Orioles, NBC Nightly News, Paramount Studios, CNN, Discovery Communications, International Tennis Hall of Fame, Infinity Broadcasting, MTV, Duke Children's Hospital, Universal Studios, Atlantic Coast Conference and a variety of media, public relations agencies, film companies and corporate settings around the world. Also, the Elon in Los Angeles program provides numerous opportunities for students to intern in the entertainment world.

To conduct an internship, students should first register for our professional readiness seminars. Then, students can enroll in COM381 Communications Internship for 1 or 2 credit hours, based on 80 work-hours per credit hour at an off-campus professional site. Students complete work with the Internship Director to register for the internship and to document their experiences through a series of guided journals that bridge their academic experience with the internship experience. The School verifies that the work experience was satisfactorily completed with the internship site supervisor.

Every communications school has an internship program, but Elon takes internships to the next level in three ways:

1. All of our internships are in professional settings. We do not award internship credit for campus jobs.
2. Our School of Communications has a full-time Internship Director available to help students every day.
3. We are proactive in seeking good internship opportunities for students by making site visits to New York, Boston, Washington and other cities, and then keeping in contact with our students on the job.

We think of internships as the vital third step. The first two steps are involvement in student media and academic preparation through coursework. A professional internship then sets the stage for the beginning of a fulfilling career.

Recent Elon students have turned internships into full-time jobs at Dreamworks in Los Angeles, MTV in New York, ABC's "The View," the Raleigh News & Observer and many national, state and regional organizations.

For internship guidelines and information on recent internships, use the links to the right. We look forward to helping you to achieve your goals.