This week, I had the pleasure to sit down and interview McKenzie Harris. She is an Editing, Writing, and Media alumna, current graduate assistant in the College of Arts and Sciences, and is in the CCI Master’s Program. She details her experience as an undergraduate student and what her internship meant for her.
Transcription:
McKenzie: College of Arts and Sciences is where I graduated from and that’s where I did my internship. When I was an undergrad, I got involved with Sigma Tau Delta, which is the English Honors Society. I was voted Vice President, and have been serving as such for the past couple years.
Chase: That’s great that you get to continue working with the honors society.
M: Yeah! And now I’m getting my master’s with the College of Communication and Information.
C: So, what is your role in both of those organizations?
M: For Sigma Tau Delta I help run everything; I assist the president, run meetings, I help think of things we’re doing… before COVID book drives and other philanthropy events. Largely now since we’ve been online I’ve been directing all the social media, with my little media minions, where we split up posting days.
With the College of Arts and Sciences I do so many things. I write articles for all the different departments which range from English to nuclear physics to neuroscience; it is the largest college. I get to work with climate scientists, physicists, philosophers who are studying how self worth affects what we do. Basically, I have my hand in all sorts of topics. I also do some videography, photography, video editing, and I do a lot of social media work as well.
C: That’s awesome! Heather Athey (Media, Marketing, and Communications Director in College of Arts and Sciences) told me that you interned under her. And so, what do the internship opportunities available for students look like?
M: Like I said, the internship is amazing. I did it for a semester and they were able to keep me on after I graduated in a paid position. We usually have between one and three interns. They work with our communications team, which is a small, tight knit team. The interns are always great. They work mostly on student spotlight and faculty spotlight articles, which we post weekly on our website. So they get to work directly with these awesome researchers and students that we have here.
They also help out with a lot of research. And it's very much like an information assistant type thing. So if we need something, and we're like, “Hey, can you go back and look at these types of articles for the past decade,” they'll do some research.
They also do social media posts for their own articles. They pretty much tailor it to what they can do. So, we have one intern who's really good at Photoshop and graphic design and she makes graphics and illustrations and things like that. Then we have someone who is more kind of on the PR side. So, she participates in podcasts and things like that. We really tailor it to what the student wants to get out of it, which was my favorite part of the internship.
When I was an intern, I went in and I was like, “I want to get experience in this,” and Heather said, “Alright, this is how we're going to do that; these are going to be your goals. We'll see where you are at the end of the semester.” It was really, really great.
And the last thing, the biggest thing, I think, is that each intern gets at least one or two stories in the Spectrum magazine, which is our College of Arts and Sciences magazine. It gets sent to all of our alumni and all of our faculty; hundreds of thousands of people read it. It's disseminated all over the world. They get at least one or two stories in that, and that's a major magazine story.
C: And so, are these internship opportunities open to all students seeking an undergraduate degree?
M: Yes, I believe they are definitely all for undergrads. I think they can kind of be for everyone; I was only Editing, Writing and Media, but I had a minor in communications. I think our interns now are double majoring in an English major and then PR or communications or something like that for a second major. As long as you have some ties to communications or English, this is an open opportunity.
C: Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Are there any specific prerequisites such as skills or previous experience that you look for in students?
M: Definitely, some writing experience helps. So whether that's something on campus, HER Campus, FSView, some sort of FSU entity, or, for example, I worked for a music and arts magazine. I just had a lot of articles that I could show Heather when I went in. And she saw potential in that. It helped that I had a portfolio; I had an E-portfolio to share. She mentioned that that was a good point in my interview.
Also just bringing to the forefront what you can do, like what special things you can bring to the table. So if you've got really good Adobe experience, definitely focus on that.
C: So highlight all of the strengths that you have in the different areas?
M: Definitely, yeah.
C: I know you talked about the standout qualities that a candidate would have, and I'm sure you've made plenty of E-portfolios and resumes yourself. What do you think is the order of importance for that, and how do you really highlight your strengths?
M: You definitely always want to put your current roles, or what you've done most recently/what you've done the most in first. So, if that happens to be your first job at McDonald's, for an editing internship, that's probably not going to be what you want to put first. Instead, put anything with the most relevant experience. That just shows that you're willing to put in the work and you're willing to do that work.
You may not have a lot of experience in editing, which I know a lot of undergrads don’t have. This was also my issue. When I applied to this internship, I was like, “I have no experience. This is going to be my first experience.”
I was lucky enough that I did have a couple articles for HER Campus. I had a couple articles for, like I said, that music arts magazine. Even if it's just something as small as that, that's… the highlight, you know? So definitely just emphasize anything that is along the lines of what position you’re trying to get.
C: I love that, because I run a social media account for fun, which is based on the different trees and plants on FSU’s campus, where I just post pictures of trees. And it has like 1,500 followers right now. So that's why Molly Hand (Editing Internship Program Director) chose me to run our social media. Right?
M: That is awesome. I've heard of that. We've talked about that account in my work meetings before. So I think I'm following it; if I'm not going to make sure I'm following it.
C: That's so funny to hear. My favorite thing is when I tell my friends about it and they're like, oh, you're FSU trees! And I'm like, yep, that's me. No biggie. It’s like a secret identity that I just get to flaunt around, right?
M: I love that.
C: Yes, and you are such a great example of this next question, which is kind of a two-parter. What will students gain by interning for this organization? And how will it contribute to their professional growth? Which has everything to deal with you right now.
M: Yeah, I mean, as soon as I got this internship, this was like my first– it wasn't my first step in the door because I was writing articles already– but this was my first step into the real professional, industry world. This is giving you true industry experience.
Heather Athey is like my idol; I love her. And she will give you what you need. My first article that I got back, she had her track changes on and I swear, it was all red. I was like, none of my words are there; my whole article was gone. It is a rigorous experience, and I absolutely loved it. I was working at a not-great retail job at the time which was stressful. With the job I was like, “This isn't what I want to do with my life.” I wanted to write; I wanted to do media stuff.
My internship opened up so many more opportunities, I worked my butt off in my internship. I did well in the internship portion. Then I kept working for them. They just enjoyed the work that I was doing; they enjoyed having me there to do the research they needed or make their social media posts whenever they needed to.
It ended up being that she offered me a position as a graduate assistant. Now I'm getting a lot of my tuition paid for through my waiver as a GA. I'm not going to have any debt after grad school, which is amazing.
C: That's awesome.
M: Yeah. There's even a chance that this could be like a full time job for me once I graduate. That's like way down the road, but that door is open. And even if that doesn't happen, working in academia – because it is similar to working for the state, working for the government – it just gives you such a professional experience. Especially this internship in particular. The College of Arts and Sciences is so diverse; it's the biggest college we have. You're going to work with so many different disciplines, with so many different people.
And you're going to learn how to write. I mean, English people already know how to write about the humanities. We already know how to write flowery things and make it sound so pretty. This will give you the chance to work on hard science stuff, like I wrote about a nuclear physics lab. I feel like my brain just exploded; I can go on and on about it. But this has been the best opportunity.
C: I totally get that, I interned at the state capitol with one of the House Representatives. It was so funny the way that they would read over my work. They were so glad I knew how to write. It's so funny because everyone always wants to tell English majors that “Oh, you don't have any skills. You're not going to find a job,” but everyone needs a writer.
M: Absolutely, who do you think runs these websites? Who do you think writes articles for all the news? News: the news that you read, the news that you hear. Someone writes that.
C: Mm hmm.
M: And to be able to put on your resume “I worked with FSU”– there's so many connections within that.
C: I'm a part of the Marching Chiefs. I'm also interning at the Career Center this summer, and the supervisor I'm working under was a part of the Marching Chiefs too. So when she saw that she's like, “You’re a Chief? I was in Chiefs!” The small connections you make in this school are just going to be even more broadened when you get out of the Tallahassee area as well.
M: Absolutely. I mean, there are Noles everywhere. Everybody knows this; we go all over the world. And not only that, but we are such a prestigious university. Being a top 20 University is a big deal.
C: Mm hmm. I know. So, was this the only internship you did while you were at FSU?
M: Pretty much. I mean, I did an internship with an organization the summer before, but it is not affiliated with FSU in any way. They kind of disbanded. But it's the Cross Cultural Coalition of Southside Tallahassee Incorporated. Very long name, very, very long name. But, that was it.
And then at the end of my sophomore year, I got this Arts and Sciences internship. That's been my job since.
C: And I know you talked a lot about how great it was, and all you learned during your internship and how great of a mentor that you had as well with Heather. But did you ever face any difficulties during your internship?
M: Definitely. It was just the first semester itself, the internship itself is difficult to do. They ask a lot of you in terms of writing, and then if you're editing it’s 9000 words. It's just a lot to reach that, especially when you're only interning for ten hours a week. So it's definitely not just, “oh, show up to work and like, you're good to go.” You have to put in the work. You might have to put in a little work outside of things too.
I think the learning curve was more drastic for me, just because I didn't have that professional writing experience where an editor really chopped up all of my work, yet. Yeah, for my work at HER they would edit it here and there.
But in terms of adversities, it was really just me just being like, “Okay, I can ask this person all these questions.” I would sometimes think, “This is a really dumb question and I shouldn't ask this.”
And Heather would say, “Stop it right there; just ask away.” So getting over my fear of asking questions and being wrong was a big thing.
And then realizing that just because she edited the hell out of my article doesn't mean that I'm not a good writer. It doesn't mean that it’s not a good article. It just means that this is what she's trying to get me to learn. Now, two, three years later, every article she's like, “Great job on this; only had a few edits.”
Also, just learning AP style, which is just not what we write in, in English.
C: Yeah, of course.
M: I mean, writers are going to have an issue learning a new style, but all of my English classes are all MLA style. Then you go into the professional writing world and they all want AP; MLA doesn't exist here.
C: No, yeah. You know how you just perfected your craft writing in MLA for the past four years? Not needed anymore.
M: Yep. Yeah, I wrote several research papers this past semester for grad school, and it’s so weird writing in APA style the whole time. I had citations everywhere. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, please don't flip back to MLA.”
C: And the footnotes too, oh my gosh! Having to catalog all of those. So funny.
M: It's so different from MLA to use, but writers like us, we’ve got to be able to flip.
C: I took an advanced writing and editing class as one of my advanced major requirements. I had Dyan Neary, and she's an actual working journalist. So, she went in and edited all of our articles for us, like personally went in and gave us advice. I was like, “I admire you so much.” It was such a great experience to have that, “You have a good sentence here, but this is how it could be better.” Having someone to just mentor you is amazing.
M: Exactly. Yeah. Like I said, my boss, Heather, has been amazing.
Also the other two main team members on our team, who are Tom Morgan and Amy Robinson are also just amazing, fabulous. I was actually there before they got hired. So we've been together the whole time. They have been just absolutely amazing. Like Amy worked in news, she worked in broadcast news for many years and Tom used to work for the state. He has a lot of graphic design and website experience. So I've just been learning so much from all of them.
C: And so for the final question: Do you have any information you want students to know or any advice for them?
M: Definitely start looking for internships and applying early, early, early. I had switched my major, I was a STEM major before I switched to English. Then I was kind of behind on my internship. I didn't really think about it until the time that I needed one. So I was really lucky that I got it. Definitely think about it early.
And not only that but think outside of the box. Just because something isn't affiliated with FSU doesn't mean that you can't make it work for your internship. If you're willing to put in the work, you can find an organization that you love and work with them, do something great for them.
I definitely say apply to this one because it's the best! Even if you don't get it the first time you apply, if you're able to continue applying for future semesters, keep putting in your application, keep getting more experience. Just keep applying because this opportunity is amazing.
C: Sounds like it! I love the fact that it is so varied in what you can do with your time during the internship.
M: That's always part of the best thing about an internship. That there's not rigid requirements like with job applications, you know? Because jobs are usually like, “Oh, you have to do this, this and this and have this experience.” But with internships, you get to kind of grow with them, which is what I really enjoy about doing them.
C: Exactly. Yeah.
M: And it's not only that, but you get to see where you started from and where you end and you're like, “Wow, look at me.” That's so cool.
C: Yes! So that's all the questions I have. If you had anything else you want to say you're good to go. But that was it.
M: Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this opportunity.
C: Thank you!
*Interview has been edited for clarity.
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