My Experience as a Summer Intern

Over the summer, I worked as an intern for the “Atlanta Civic Circle,” an Atlanta-based newspaper, and it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was intimidating, and it was definitely out of my comfort zone, but I learned so much, both about myself and about what it takes to be a successful journalist in the “real world.” I may not have loved my internship, but I’m grateful for it nonetheless, and I would implore other highschoolers to apply for them.

While there are other ways to apply for internships, I leveraged my connections to apply for mine. I learned of the opportunity from reaching out to a family friend who was once involved with the paper. Afterwards, she connected me with the woman who ran the paper, and I introduced myself to her via email. She asked me to submit a portfolio of the work I’ve done for “The Elliot,” and asked me to explain to her why I wanted the opportunity. After I submitted that, she reached out to my journalism teacher, and then a couple weeks later, she let me know that they were interested in offering me an opportunity. 

The first thing that struck me when I started the internship was just how much the work environment differs in a more professional setting in comparison to that of our school paper. Things moved a lot faster. I didn’t have the week or two weeks that I typically had to write articles— most things I wrote had to be drafted in about a week at most. I had to interview a lot more people for my pieces than before, and that required me to be a lot more sociable with more unfamiliar faces than I had to at Galloway. I had to learn to be persistent in the way that I pursued the people I used in my articles, and I had to be okay with making the individuals I talked to uncomfortable to glean the information I needed— I had limited time to get my work done.

I was required to be more intentional and efficient about the way I planned out my time and connected with people, and it’s a skill that has served me well during my time writing as a senior for “The Elliot.” I’ve always taken a notoriously long time to write pieces, and since I’m the editor-in-chief this year, I have way less time to write pieces than before. I became a better planner by a direct result of the challenges I overcame, and I became a faster and more concise writer.

Something that also stuck out to me was simply just the level of knowledge that the people seemed to have about the city of Atlanta as a whole, and by extension how little I seemed to know about it.  There are so many issues that citizens in the state face that I never really knew about, including tenants rights and unionization. I never knew what being a right-to-work state meant, I never knew what unionization meant, and in general, I knew absolutely nothing about the city legislation as a whole; however, I ended up learning about these things.

Being around and working with writers who were experts on the city helped me to better understand it. I never knew that there were so many important decisions that could be made at statewide and citywide levels. I was able to connect with Atlanta on a level I never had before. 

My internship challenged me and made me uncomfortable; however, I am still grateful for my experience. It was my first real job, and it was the closest experience in my life where I worked as an “adult.” I met many amazing people and not some not-so-amazing people during my time there, but I’m appreciative of the lessons that I learned from both of them nonetheless. It also served as a way for me to learn more about a profession that I have long considered pursuing a career in during and after college.

To anyone who has the chance, I recommend taking an internship in any field you’re interested in. It can serve as a way for people to get out of their comfort zones, experience new people, and learn more about different academic interests you have—I gained a lot of clarity about the things I did and didn’t like about journalism, which has actually influenced the colleges I’m applying to. To any high schoolers with the opportunity to do so, I implore you to apply for internships. It certainly doesn’t hurt your college applications, and you can learn about things you would’ve never learned about before.

By Kailen Hicks