College, COVID-19

College & Interning During a Pandemic

College & Internships During A Pandemic

When I first started UAB two years a go one of my concerns was who I was going to be interning for. I was nervous for two reasons: One, getting an internship can be hard especially when it’s a very competitive one. Secondly, it was  my low self-esteem and me expecting the worst outcome of not finding an internship. In May of this year I started looking for internship opportunities. I went as far as creating a LinkedIn account to reach out to people at the news stations. Due to the pandemic the news stations weren’t allowing students to intern until the spring.

Keep in mind that I am supposed to graduate this fall with a degree in Communication Broadcasting. This field requires us to have an internship to graduate. Dr. Jacquelyn Shaia is one of the advisors of the Communications Studies department here at UAB. She recommended me some available internships for the fall. I was browsing through those internship opportunities, when I came across Girlspring.com. Girlspring.com is an online magazine for teen girls and, it also a remote internship.

What Is it like having a Remote Internship?

During the pandemic working remotely has become popular.  With offices shutdown, people have come accustom to this “new normal” by working at home. The positive thing of working remotely is the flexible hours. Since I am not in an office building I can work from anywhere. Having flexibility also means that you are not working hourly. Also you can work on different projects one at a time. Having projects that are due each week is like having homework. A remote internship is easy, and I find it fun working remotely.

What is College like during a Pandemic 

The hardest thing for me working remotely is that UAB is still partially shutdown. That means their only doing hybrid classes. Another thing that is challenging about UAB being partially shutdown is the editing lab not being open. With my internship and visual media class I have this semester I have to use the media lab to edit videos as a part of the assignments.

The media lab on campus is used to allow students to edit whatever video or podcast that they have recorded. The media personnel are students hired by the overseers of the communications department. These personnel grant students access to the lab. This semester due to the pandemic there are no media personnel working. So, I do not have access to the lab expect one person and that is one of the faculty member working can let the students into the lab.

All in all,  this semester at a partially closed UAB has been different. However, this semester has been fairly easy, and I’ve enjoyed having hybrid classes, and a remote internship. Honestly, I’ve never thought that my last semester of college would look the way it does.

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