Here is the October issue of Springfield CARES Magazine. I contributed to the issue by writing an article, editing the ads and submitted content, and helping with layout.

This semester, I’ve been undergoing not one, but two internships–one on campus and one outside of campus. It’s been quite the experience so far. Internships have allowed me to consider what kind of career I’m looking for when I graduate. It helps me distinguish what kinds of jobs I enjoy doing and other jobs I might not enjoy so much.

In my situation, I know that I like to write and I know that I’m interested in journalism, but my goal is to decide what I’m looking for in a dream job. Currently, I have one internship that works with the web and the other that works with print.

A lot of our departments at Drury encourage students to take on at least one internship (or, you know, two at once) during their time at college. In fact, I know for sure that our business school and architecture requires students to do an internship. I realize the word “requires” seems kind of stressful or scary, but don’t let that bug you. Internships are not as intimidating as you might think.

I’ll give you a bit of a background of what I’m doing.

Drury’s Web Communications

I’ve been working for Drury’s website since my freshman year of college, so I was already familiar with the department when I decided to sign-up for an internship. I have three main responsibilities that include writing online stories for other departments on campus (published work!), filming convocations to put on the website, and actually this–maintaining a blog. I work about 10  hours per week, so it’s not too time consuming. I love working here because my schedule allows me to be flexible. I also enjoy the  people I work with, so that is definitely a plus.

Springfield CARES Magazine

If you’ve read my blog before, you might have seen that I’ve already written about my experiences with Springfield CARES Magazine. I started this internship last May. Springfield CARES is a magazine for the non-profits and charities of Springfield and it comes out once a month. For the magazine, I work with our nonprofit members, collect content, write articles, and edit. I haven’t really kept track of how many hours I work per week for the magazine, but it’s not too much since it’s volunteer work (expect unpaid internships, they aren’t that bad anyway). This opportunity was proposed to me last spring when I was taking a communication class with Dr. Regina Waters. Dr. Waters announces internship opportunities in her classes. Hopefully other professors do this as well to help students find internships. It really helps! If it wasn’t for Dr. Waters, I would not have found this internship.

I am able to do all of this while taking 13 credit hours of classes this semester (add 3 more credit hours for my Web Communications internship). Not bad, but there are so many opportunities I want to take on. I have to stop myself from doing too much. I’m thinking about applying for a summer internship with another organization, but I don’t know yet. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Where would you like to intern? If you have an internship or you’ve already completed one, where do/did you work? Reply in the comment below! I’m curious to see where Drury students are going to apply their knowledge and skills.