I may be really late into the game with this idea, but it dawned on me after obtaining my social media/PR Intern at JetSetter Gypsy this month that doing internships after college isn’t that bad of an idea. I did the We Party Boston one before I was hired at Minuteman Press, and I forced myself to do that one because I realized that by moving out of the Bethlehem, PA area, I literally had no contacts and no experience in the Boston area.

Internships are more than gaining valuable experience in your field, and unfortunately the word “intern” gets thrown around haphazardly in the business world as a way to gain cheap labor by camouflaging the labor as an “intern” but even the Federal Government states that interns must be paid or compensated in some way for their labor and cannot be ‘free’! But there are some decent internships out there you just have to go hunting for them.

Internships are great if you are looking to branch out in your field into a similar but different area. I applied for the one at JetSetter Gypsy because I am trying to expand my blog more and the owner and I share similar writing styles and I am hoping that by promoting my blog in response to the work I do for her I’ll gain more of an audience. I am also hoping the experience MIGHT bring me into a better position in terms of being a better print designer.

I also get to use my psychic senses by writing her travel horoscopes!

Anyway, I highly recommend taking a second look at internships because they are more than just an experience. By working with someone whose established themselves in the business world you gain a connection. But you also gain insight on the way of life within the business. That’s what I appreciated the most while working at Minuteman Press. I never really got to see what a graphic designer ‘acted’ like in the ‘real world’. All I was told that an in-house graphic design position was ideal. But experiencing something is completely different than idolizing or even reading something on paper.

I can definitely see myself doing internships even when I may be doing freelance full-time or working in-house part-time. I have been searching for a textile/pattern internship. When I interviewed for a stationery house out in Santa Barbara, CA it made me realize what direction I want to go in more than ever.