Write Your Own Ticket to the Future with Privila
I contacted Privila because I was interested in branching out from “old media” (print journalism) and gaining experience in “new media” (online journalism). I felt my resume had a serious gap in this respect. I also wanted to gain some experience and generate some online clips on a variety of topics.
The Privila internship was a great way to do this. I could telecommute and dovetail my Privila commitments around for-pay assignments as a free-lance writer and reporter. The editors and supervisors I worked with were very understanding of the demands on my time and more than willing to extend a deadline when I needed it.
One of the most rewarding things about this internship was that the staff asks for your opinion and input. They try to make assignments that correspond to your interests. For instance, I’ve done a lot of international traveling for work. It’s one thing to write about overseas places as they relate to business. Yet, it’s quite another to write about them from a travelogue perspective, and to make the reader yearn to see that place just from the description you provide. I got a chance to do that, and I loved it. In fact, I learned so much from my research about Madrid, Spain, that now it’s on my “must-see-for-myself-one-day” list.
I was also impressed with the professional demands Privila makes on its interns. Editors require source documentation for all research. This reinforces in a practical setting what students learn in school. Editors also expect interns to approach projects as if they were writing for their own online mini-magazines. Interns are encouraged to develop their own voices in an entertaining and informative way, and to produce a hefty amount of work each week—the same as in the real world.
Privila interns get a chance to develop professional expertise and a portfolio of bylined articles they can use in their post-education job hunts. For those who do their research thoroughly and present their articles professionally, there’s a terrific payoff—discovering that YOUR article has become an often-sourced result on a search engine. YOU get a chance to establish yourself as a creditable reporter and source of information on a variety of topics.
In today’s communications world, that kind of reputation is worth its weight in gold.
-- submitted by Lydia Rypcinski, Chicago, Illinois, March 12, 2007
(Journalist via telecommute, 2006-2007)
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