As one of Rutgers University’s premier professional and research schools, SC&I seeks to prepare its students for life-long career success by providing them with real-world learning experiences.

One of the most popular opportunities SC&I offers is an internship in its Office of Marketing and Communications, led by Director of Marketing and Strategic Communications Brenda Sheridan, Ed.D. 

The office offers four internships during the academic year: events, graphic design, news writing (this internship was formerly known as the public relations internship), and social media; and three internships during the summer: graphic design, news writing, and social media.

"I’m currently the Food & Culture Reporter/Writer for NJ.com and I would say I use all the skills I learned from my internship with SC&I in my position now. Skills like reporting, interviewing, writing, and being more assertive when getting answers to questions." -- Lauren Giselle Munsi 

By securing one of these coveted positions, students boost their chances of landing the career they aspire to by working side-by-side with Sheridan and other Office of Marketing and Communications staff members for twenty hours a week. The internships are paid and they can also be taken for credit.

The interns work on high-level projects that directly support the goals of the school and at the same time enable the students to acquire cutting-edge skills and knowledge, and build outstanding portfolios of work to show prospective employers.

Sheridan’s office has been hiring interns since 2014, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, so we decided to catch up with a few of our past news writing/public relations interns to ask, how did you benefit from interning for SC&I, and do you still apply what you learned?

As this is the first in a series highlighting the successes of our past interns, look soon for the next story highlighting our former social media interns.

"I will forever credit this experience as my first exposure to public relations, an industry where I would later begin to develop a career. I remember having an incredible support system of adults encouraging me." -- Mary Ellen Dowd 

Marley Arzonico RBS’23 - Billing Analyst at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP

“I was a news writing intern for SC&I in the summer of 2019, right after my freshman year. I did a lot of behind the scenes work for the social media accounts, content generation, and writing for the SC&I website. I was able to meet with a lot of SC&I students and faculty, and while I was a business student I felt like I had learned everything about the communications school! On slower days I walked around campus and took pictures for the social media channels and interviewed professors for future stories. I became very comfortable using HootSuite which was very helpful for some of my social media and digital marketing classes. I love creative writing so this internship gave me a great outlet to write about whatever I wanted to, as well as some guided pieces.

I ended up changing career directions and I now work in finance at a law firm and will hopefully go to law school in the coming years. But my SC&I internship taught me so much! It was my first real, in-person job where I had to show up at the same time, fill out a payroll sheet, etc. So that is obviously very helpful for any job I had after that. It also gave me experience on professionalism and reaching out to people I might be nervous to. Proper email etiquette is so important and it is a skill not enough people have. Scheduling and time management is also something my time at SC&I helped me improve upon! I would have several projects with different deadlines, so it was important that I not only manage my time well but stay organized with my projects. I work for several lawyers now, and they all have different needs, so having had those skills coming in has been very helpful for me.”

I feel like a lot of it definitely transferred over, like working with different kinds of people, and interviewing people. It was one of the first places that I did any work on social media, and I definitely carried those skills over to my current position and I also really gained a news sense and good story judgment which has been pivotal to my job.” -- Amber Atabansi 

Amber Atabansi JMS’19 - Social Marketing Coordinator at NBC Entertainment

“I really enjoyed my experience interning for SC&I, I loved the team I worked with, and it was very obvious they wanted me to do well and be as engaged as possible! I learned a lot about writing evergreen pieces, picking compelling subjects for features and I learned a great deal about interviewing and connecting with subjects.

I feel like a lot of it definitely transferred over, like working with different kinds of people, and interviewing people. It was one of the first places that I did any work on social media, and I definitely carried those skills over to my current position and I also really gained a news sense and good story judgment which has been pivotal to my job.”

Mary Ellen Dowd JMS’20 - Communications Associate at TerraCycle, Inc.

“I did my internship with SC&I back in 2018 when I was a sophomore at Rutgers studying Journalism and Media Studies. I will forever credit this experience as my first exposure to public relations, an industry where I would later begin to develop a career. I remember having an incredible support system of adults encouraging me. Carol Peters became a mentor whom I highly respected, and she was one of the first adults who made me feel that I had a special writing ability that could serve me in a career in public relations. SC&I was the first place I wrote full-length articles in a public relations voice. I became an expert at conducting research and interviews while increasing my confidence in all professional areas. Overall, I had an amazing experience with my SC&I internship and would encourage any young student looking for their start in public relations or marketing to apply. The major thing that I took from my SC&I internship that I still use in my career today is the confidence to talk to others professionally. At SC&I, I was constantly interviewing students, faculty, and staff in order to create written content for the website and for media. Today, I am expected to communicate with journalists across North America in a way that will convince them to publish the successes of my company. Both of these tasks require a certain level of boldness and confidence that budded during those early years of college and slowly grew over time.”

"I was able to connect with different people across the many disciplines within the school, from interviewing deans, to professors, and rising star students. It helped me organize myself and learn the proper techniques to conduct productive interviews and gave me insight into what life is like after graduation." -- Justin Von den Steinen

Lauren Giselle Musni JMS’21 - Food & Culture Reporter for NJ.com and The Star-Ledger

“I learned how to report, interview sources, come up with the important questions, have that editor/writer relationship, and how to effectively structure a news story. I was actually interning for SC&I the semester when COVID-19 hit N.J., and everything was shut down. Luckily, I was still able to do the internship remotely. I learned how to work remotely thanks to SC&I. Meetings were moved online through Zoom and interviews were recorded and conducted over the phone. There was also a huge boom of stories during the 2020 spring semester, and I had tighter deadlines and several stories I had to write every week. This internship taught me how to be agile and adhere to new deadlines even if they were shorter.

I’m currently the Food & Culture Reporter/Writer for NJ.com and I would say I use all the skills I learned from my internship with SC&I in my position now. Skills like reporting, interviewing, writing, and being more assertive when getting answers to questions. This position is also remote so SC&I definitely set a good foundation for me in regards to working remote.”

"It also gave me experience on professionalism and reaching out to people I might be nervous to. Proper email etiquette is so important and it is a skill not enough people have. Scheduling and time management is also something my time at SC&I helped me improve upon!" -- Marley Arzonico

Justin Von den Steinen JMS’19, Campaign Manager at NBC Universal

“My internship at SC&I was a great opportunity to give back to the Rutgers community, earn a few college credits (and make a little money too), really, I couldn’t ask for a better internship.

I was able to connect with different people across the many disciplines within the school, from interviewing deans, to professors, and rising star students. It helped me organize myself and learn the proper techniques to conduct productive interviews and gave me insight into what life is like after graduation.

I would say that the skills I was able to carry into my career were learning how to ask good questions, listen, and document. While I ended up working in advertising, the people skills I developed through my internship played a role in getting me to where I am today. Being able to manage tight deadlines and develop creative ideas, as well as synthesizing complex topics for a general audience, is always a good skill to have.”

Discover more about the Rutgers School of Communication and Information on the website. 

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