Pursuing a Career in Media with NPR

Name: Sherry

Year: Senior

Majors: Economics

CFS Program: Field Studies in Business Culture

Employer: NPR

I am a senior at Weinberg majoring in Economics. After my summer consulting experience, I realized I want to do something different and I went searching online. Working for a media company has always been my dream although I am not a journalism major. I found this current internship at NPR through online application on their career portal. I closely read the job descriptions for the intern descriptions of different departments and found that the business development matches both my skill sets and my interests. After careful preparation and the phone interview, I got the offer. I then applied for the CFS online Business Culture class to enrich my experience.

My internship is based in Washington, D.C. where there are tons of free museums to explore on weekends. The internship at NPR started with the orientation and allowed 50 interns to meet each other. The friendliness of my intern friends and my colleagues made me fall in love with this workplace on the first day. Each week I would be assigned with a project and I usually have the flexibility to plan my week to get the work done. I think frequent communications with my manager is the key to a successful internship. Throughout the internship, I was able to see how external partnerships are built, how professional emails were drafted and how client calls were answered. I definitely built on my soft skills through observing and doing projects.

CFS online Business Culture class is wonderful. Each week we meet online on Monday night to discuss several overarching trends in business culture, focusing especially on the educational and professional purpose of internships. Each student also has the opportunity to do a presentation and it is really refreshing to see different sides of the argument.