BY Shelby Morris
While college is supposed to prepare someone for the real world, workplace-learning experience comes from internships. College may prepare someone for what he or she is going to do, but internships teach someone how to act and react in a work environment. Many new relation-ships can be formed while interning, whether with employees, bosses, or the internship coordinator at UAB. Whether paid or unpaid, a student is sure to learn a lot from the experience gained through an internship.
There are many internship opportunities available around UAB and in Birmingham. English majors and minors, especially students with professional writing concentrations, have many opportunities to intern at places where their major will be of use. There are graduate and undergraduate internship opportunities within the UAB English department, including: assisting the editors of PMS poemmemoirstudy and Birmingham Poetry Review. Working as a research assistant for an English professor is also an option to be considered.
There are even writing opportunities available on campus in the medical field through the UAB research labs. These are just some of the on campus internship options for English majors or minors. There are also plenty of internships available as writers for local newspapers or corporations off campus. The Birmingham News has paid internships during the summer. There are also many internship opportunities exclusively for women. The Association for Women in Sports Media tries to further the careers of women in sports by placing female college students interested in sports media careers in paid internships.
While there are internships available for college students, there are even more available for young professionals after graduation. If one is interested in writing for magazines, then there are companies in Birmingham who publish well-known magazines. Southern Living and Coastal Living are two well-known magazines whose headquarters are in Birmingham. They offer year-long paid internships to people who have bachelor degrees. Experience like this is a huge step toward being employed by a successful magazine corporation. This experience can help land a student a good job outside of the magazine industry since Southern Living and Coastal Living are two of the most successful magazines in the south. Listing them under internship experience will really boost a résumé.
If interested in interning, one must first meet several requirements: the student must be enrolled full-time as an English major or minor at UAB and must be classified as a junior. One must also be able to work the required number of hours (10-15) to fulfill commitments to the employer. Additionally, the student must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 for an off campus internship or on campus research internship and a 2.5 minimum GPA for a publications internship.
If awarded an internship, enrollment in EH 311 or EH 411 for the internship semester and supervision from the internship coordinator, Dr. Cynthia Ryan, is required. All the requirements of either of those courses must be met in order to successfully complete an internship. All this information can be found on the UAB College of Arts and Sciences web-site under Internships in English.
Scheduling an appointment with Dr. Ryan at the beginning of the semester prior to the internship semester begins this process. Following that meeting, fill out the Internship Application Form online and stay in contact with Dr. Ryan. Make sure to enroll in the required course as well. Dr. Ryan works repeatedly with certain internship organizations and she aims to establish connections for students that best suit their interests and skill sets, placing them in a fitting work environment. She has helped a student in professional writing with an interest in health care work as an intern for UAB Health Care Marketing; she also connected a student pursuing museum studies to an internship cataloging and curating an exhibit for the Reynolds Historical Library atop Lister Hill Library. Numerous stories like these are the product of her work. She even helped a student with plans for a master’s degree in library and information sciences work in the Birmingham Public Library archives, where she wrote a successful grant for the digitization of an African American newspaper published in Alabama. If an internship is needed, Dr. Cynthia Ryan is the woman who can match students up to the internship that best suits their academic and career pursuits.
Internships can be found through an online search, but it is best to discuss these with an advisor and then the intern-ship coordinator. Completing an internship provides excellent experience to include on a résumé, networking skills and connections, and possibly job opportunities post-graduation. College is all about networking, so what better way to do that than through interning? Whether it is a paid internship or one that gives academic credit, they help build confidence in a writer’s skill and give one experience in a workplace environment.
Questions concerning available internships should be directed to Dr. Cynthia at cynryan@uab.edu.
