This summer students were scattered around the country and across the globe getting first-hand professional experience during their summer internships. Students are sharing their experiences through InternGrams, a recap of the what, where, and wow of their experiences.
Name: Erin Grant BA ‘21
Organization: The Borgen Project
Career aspiration: Journalist/Non-profit work
This summer I worked as a Journalism Intern for The Borgen Project—a non-profit organization that focuses on political advocacy to help eliminate global poverty and hunger. As a remote worker, I was largely responsible for creating my own schedule and planning interviews, fundraising, research, and writing time accordingly. I wrote a total of nine articles that were geared at highlighting the work of specific organizations or impactful events related to global poverty.
Most of my articles focused on the political or business side of the issues and organizations I wrote about, and I often tried to incorporate the impact of policy. I researched and reached out to well-known organizations and was able to conduct interviews with people such as the Senior Communications Officer of the World Bank's International Development Association, the President of the non-profit Trickle Up, and the Executive VP of the Hunger Project.
I found that working remotely forced me to be more independent and resourceful in terms of scheduling, contacting potential interviewees, and even writing. Working remotely also helped me to hone my online communication skills with my manager and my editors, which I think is a valuable skill going forward in a tech-oriented society.
Overall, this experience helped me practice writing under a deadline, pitching article ideas, and conducting research for short-form pieces.
I feel confident that this internship gave me more insight into the inner-workings of a non-profit—such as the importance of online presence and familiarity—as well as practice writing informative news pieces. I hope to utilize these skills both at school and next summer as I pursue another internship that will allow me to explore my interests.