Summer is upon us and while many of you students out there are relaxing and enjoying your school-free summer (or summer school, for some of you!), I’m sure many of you are already thinking about internships for the next school year. To help inspire you, I’ll be (finally) posting some internship profiles here on the blog. First up is recently minted Communication Studies graduate Landon Boren, BA, ’13!
Landon, ’13 COMS graduate!
Q: Where did you intern and what do they do?
Landon: “I interned for an entertainment and lifestyle public relations firm called Charles Zukow Associates. They focus on doing publicity locally in San Francisco, and work with clients such as Beach Blanket Babylon, the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation, Disney On Ice, and Ghirardelli Square.”
Q: How did you find this internship?
Landon: “I found this internship through signing up for the Communication Studies Internship course!” Side note: Charles Zukow Associates has a long history of hiring COMS majors as interns! They contact us each semester and they are an excellent internship! So be on the lookout if you want the opportunity to intern at CZA!
Q: Why did you decide to intern there?
Landon: “I decided to intern here because it seemed like a place with excellent connections within the city, and an impressive client history. With working from everything such as the Mark Hopkins to the Union Square Ice Rink, I could tell it would be a place where I would grow.”
Q: What did you do on a regular basis at this internship?
Landon: “I would help re-organize and update existing contact lists in the CZA system, do blogger outreach, put media drops together, help discover the advertising rates of local media to create prices for publicity, answer phones, fax, and run miscellaneous errands (such as picking up party favors for a benefit event that night).”
Q: What have you learned from this internship?
Landon: “I have learned how to be self-sufficient and solve my own questions/problems, how to speak to the media, how to put together press packages, blogger outreach, and how one connection in the industry can lead to a hundred more.”
Q: What advice do you have for other students looking for an internship?
Landon: “Do your research!! It is so important to intern at place that is right for you. If that means stalking the website and seeing what ties the business has in your industry, so be it. Make sure that the business is reputable, professional, and can advance you. Be keenly aware of the vibe that you get when you first walk into the office, and how you feel in regard to your interaction with the employees working there. If it doesn’t seem like a nurturing environment where people will guide and help you, you might want to re-consider if it is the place you should choose.
One piece of advice that I want to give from my own personal experience is that you should always be on your best behavior and act professionally. You never know who is going to walk in the door when you are unprepared and get a bad impression from you. I will admit that there were a couple times this semester when I would take little breaks from working to be on my phone, and that is not something that looks good to your supervisor!”
Thanks, Landon, for sharing your experiences at CZA! We hope you keep in touch with us now that you are an alum! We will be waiting to receive your business card!
Thank you, Landon! We enjoyed having you work with us and can’t wait to see the amazing things you will do!