| Description |
I can think of only a few departments at the University of Utah where students and faculty use the words "internship" and "experience" more often than in the Department of Communication. By the time broadcast journalism students graduate, those words occupy an unusually large chunk of their vocabularies, but for good reason. Doing internships and gaining practical experience while we're in college, we are told, is critical to getting a job after graduation. The theory is students can learn only so much about the "real world of television news reporting in two-hour classes taught twice a week within the confines of a three-month quarter. The daily grind, the long hours, the thrilling interviews, and the every-day deadlines and pressures simply cannot be simulated accurately in the classroom. For that reason, internships are actual requirements for the mass communication major. But even in an internship at one of Salt Lake's t.v. stations, a student can gain at best only a clearer, not always a clear, vision of what the job is like. Nevertheless, students need a realistic look. Otherwise, they may graduate with a report card full of high marks but with a head full of grandiose ideas. |
