The Academic Side of Things

One of the reasons I wanted to get an internship this summer was so I could get academic credit while getting a good life (and potentially career) experience.  Today, I got my paperwork all in order to get academic credit.  I was a little uncertain about how the political science internship coordinator would feel, since "New Media Intern" isn't a title that people associate with political science internships, but he had a very positive reaction when I told him about it and happily signed everything he needed to!

So, the academic side of this internship is going to be pretty straightforward: keep an educational journal and send it to the prof once a week (easy enough since I'll be blogging and keep a journal anyways), write a 10-page ethics paper based on an interview with your supervisor, and write a 25-30 page paper relating the internship experience to the field of political science (may have to stretch a bit on that one, but I'm sure I can handle it).  For all of that, I'll get six credit hours towards my masters degree!  Let's just hope that I do a good enough job on the above-mentioned papers and journals that those six credit hours work out to an A!

I'm also brushing up on some of my academic skills that haven't been utilized so much in grad school: my writing skills.  Yes, we do lots of writing in my masters program, but it's all very dry and academic.  This internship is letting me get back in touch with my fun writing skills...I'm busting out my old newspaper writing talents!  But that means getting back up to speed with AP style (my trusty AP stylebook is sitting next to me as I write this).  I'm also reviewing some stuff about web marketing, just so that I can have a good base of knowledge when they start teaching me web metrics and all of that.

I'm anxiously counting down the days until my background check is cleared and I can get my official start date...nine to go!  I want to leave for Colorado Springs now!  I've been emailing Emily, the current New Media intern...she seems really nice and she's offered me a lot of good advice.  She also told Jordan Malone, one of my favorite speedskaters, about me!  How cool is that??