Internship Experiences
At the culmination of my coursework for the media literacy minor, my internship experiences allowed me to take my knowledge and put it into action. I worked with the Trumansburg Education Foundation and the National Association for Media Literacy Education. In these roles I learned more about the media literacy community and engaged with major stakeholders in the field. This showed me how diverse the landscape of media literacy is and that there are so many organizations doing important work to further advocacy and educational and legislative development surrounding media literacy.
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Each of these experiences allowed me to get a better understanding of how I want to incorporate media literacy into my future career and every day life as a journalist and consumer of media.
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The Trumansburg Education Foundation
At the Trumansburg Education Foundation I served as a Media Education Intern and advisor for the Trumansburg Troubadour, a student newsletter. Here I taught lesson plans in writing, reporting and editing to 4th-8th grades students in a weekly after school program.
At my first day as a Media Education intern at the Trumansburg Education Foundation, the students went around and talked about what they wanted to write about for the student newsletter, the Trumansburg Troubadour. Interests of the students from grades four through eight ranged from increasing LGBTQ+ education in school, why students should be able to carry backpacks around school and why you shouldn’t use plastic straws. Students who didn’t want to write created artwork to accompany the articles and a comic about llamas falling through a portal and entering a new dimension. It was inspiring to see the students so excited to get to work and learn. In each step of our research, writing and editing process the students were able to learn about the world around them and find out what they are passionate about.
Working with such curious students made me wonder how much being media natives, with a world of information at their fingertips, impacted their interest in their community and the greater world at large. This experience allowed me to further find my niche within the industry of digital media and communication and become even more inquisitive about how technology impacts new generations of children. Read the Troubadour here!
The National Association for Media Literacy Education
When I entered as an intern for NAMLE, my biggest goal was to have a clearer grasp on media literacy and the surrounding community. It can be a broad and scattered field, but through my experience researching, collaborating and connecting with others in the community I have developed a more thorough understanding of the work different organizations do, and how they are all connected.
Through this experience I learned that media is pervasive in every aspect of society and culture, and proficiency in understanding it is vital. In a Q&A with media educator Kristy Roschke, PhD, she expressed that even if an organization is not directly linked with media literacy, there are ways to incorporate and advocate for it it in every aspect of work. This insight has been vital to my career goals. I was also very inspired by orgs like Common Sense Media, KQED, and PBS Student Reporting Labs. I would love to work within media education production. In the future I will get involved with and learn more about and curriculum development and youth media.
This internship also helped me become comfortable with remote projects and in becoming a more adaptable worker. In the beginning I had difficulty maneuvering around the spreadsheet and inputting data, but the more I worked the more comfortable I became. I also was able to get a better handle on creative problem solving and working independently - knowing when I could find the answer to a question myself and when I needed to ask for help.
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Check out my final project rounding up my internship experience here!