Forget about orientation. Forget about easing into an internship. Lauren Murphy didn't dip in a toe to test the waters. Instead, she was thrust shoulders deep into her internship with MTV in Los Angeles: She had to work the MTV Movie Awards.
The sophomore strategic communications major is part of the Elon in Los Angeles program, but she beat her fellow students and even Elon in L.A. coordinator J. McMerty to southern California to begin her internship. Murphy arrived in L.A. on May 18 and began working May 20. And her boss at MTV wanted her out there even sooner.
“When I had my interview over the phone with her, she really tried to get me out here earlier because of the movie awards,” Murphy says. “I thought that was a great experience to have, so I decided to come out here earlier.”
Murphy’s initial tasks involved preparing press credentials and then calling media organizations on the press list to make sure MTV had the right contact information. She then organized the credentials and checked in media members and told them where to stand on the day of the show.
After everyone was set up perfectly and the red carpet opened, Murphy and the other interns escorted talent who didn’t have publicists down the carpet, asking different outlets if they would like interviews with the talent. During the show, she escorted talent from backstage to the press room.
“I thought it was amazing, I loved it,” she says. “It was crazy and stressful but a lot of fun and interesting all at the same time.”
During her more normal days at MTV, Murphy keeps track of the coverage of MTV and its programming on entertainment shows, such as “Extra” and “The Daily 10,” and in print and online publications. She handles press clippings and tracks what “pops up on magazine Web sites and blogs,” she says.
Murphy landed her internship through one of those convoluted connections: One of her dad’s friend’s friends knew someone within MTV and hooked Murphy up with contact information. She sent the MTV contact an e-mail and set up an interview. Within two days, Murphy had landed the internship.
Because she’s a sophomore, Murphy says she isn’t looking for a job at the end of her summer experience, but she is hoping that a future internship with MTV, possibly in New York, is on the horizon.
“I would like to get another internship with MTV with the press department and see how that differs,” she says, “see how that difference affects my liking for this job.”
But so far, she says, she’s enjoyed every anxious minute of her frenzied internship.
“So far it’s been great,” Murphy says. “It’s a big company, which is exactly type of internship I wanted to get. I think I’m really learning how entertainment publicity really works, and I think it could be a career possibility for me in the future. I knew I liked PR and advertising, but I wasn’t necessarily interested in entertainment publicity. I didn’t really know how I would like it, but after working huge event like the awards, I think it is something I would like to do.”
Intern Insider will run one to two times a week during the summer and will feature brief stories about some of the interns from the School of Communications or in School of Communications programs.