The Power of the Right Internship
Sylvia Erdely
Erdely stayed in Philadelphia, her hometown, and worked at Fringe Arts. “I've always loved the arts and wanted to do something in it,” she shared. “But I never really realized that that was something truly available to me. And through this internship, I think I realized that a career in the arts is not only possible but also very rewarding.”
What she thought would be internal communications work ended up being an all-encompassing, interdisciplinary experience where she was given full control over many of her assignments. “I think that's really a step away from the kind of work that we get in class where there's a rigid set of instructions, you follow them as closely as possible, and you get the assignment done in the specific way that's been requested,” she explained. The autonomy helped her build new confidence in her abilities, and she learned to trust herself more.
Since the internship, Erdely joined the Arthur Ross Gallery’s student advisory board to stay connected to the arts work that fulfilled her. With her newfound confidence, she also became a manager at Penn’s student-run cafe.
“I'm applying a lot of these skills that I refined at Fringe: communication, organization, deadline setting and making, you know, making sense of vague, nebulous tasks and breaking them down.”
Chenyao Liu
Liu applied for her internship at Hidden Pictures in Los Angeles as an environmental science major. She was considering a minor in cinema studies but couldn’t picture it as a career path. But after a life-changing internship experience over the summer, she took on cinema studies as a second major.
“Getting to actually do the work,” Liu said, “and realizing that I enjoy the work (I probably enjoyed it a lot more than doing scientific research) was a really big factor in me realizing that [...] there’s a really interesting, viable field that I want to dive into.”
Our team at Hidden Pictures nurtured a strong relationship with Liu, providing her with regular feedback and encouraging her to share her opinions. Liu describes this personal, back-and-forth relationship as pivotal in helping her become a better writer.
She said, “It’s so different being immersed in it for ten weeks, to be doing it everyday, and for that to be the only thing I'm doing. And I don't think I would have gotten the amount of knowledge I did if I wasn’t actively working in that [environment].”
In addition to deciding to double-major, Liu now visits professors during office hours more often to continue getting one-on-one feedback. She felt empowered to produce a show for Stimulus Children’s Theatre, having seen what goes into producing projects. And she became a film and TV reporter for the student publication 34th St Magazine since she’d sharpened her writing and her eye doing so much coverage over the summer.
Read the full conversation transcript to learn more about these excellent internship experiences.
Applications are still open for two of our Career Connections internships for the coming summer, and applications for funding awards close on Apr 10. If you've ever considered a career in the arts, this is your opportunity for a powerful, hands-on experience to learn whether it’s the right fit for you.
SanyaGrace Kunicki is the Associate Director of Marketing & Communications at Penn Live Arts.
