So you've been offered an internship but how do you know if it is the right internship for you?

                                 Congratulations! You've been offered an internship which is very exciting.

The question is how do you know if it is the right internship for you?

That might seem like a very silly question. After all getting one internship offer was hard work why would you ever consider turning it down? There are several very good reasons for not accepting an internship if it isn't the right fit for you.  To understand what those reasons are it helps to look at how you tell if it is the right internship for you.

Will you be working with someone you can learn from or who can inspire you to be a better photographer?

• Not every person you work with can teach.  You want to make sure you are doing an internship with someone who will be a good mentor and teacher for you. 
• There is little point in doing an internship if you aren't going to come out a better photographer.  If you just want 3 credits, you could just take a general elective course.  
• Being an intern is a large time commitment.

             Does the person you are interning with have a bad history with his or her interns?

• I wish that I could say every person you have the chance to intern with will be amazing! Many of them really will which I am glad to say, however there are some who may not be.
• Check to see if the person has a history of only using interns as assistants.  It can be ok if that is how they do things but you may want to know up front if you will have any hands on training as their intern or if you will just be given tasks to complete.
• If you have hopes of working with this particular company or photographer you may want to know up front if he or she ever hires his interns.
• Ask around in photography forums if anyone has ever interned with this company or person.
• Do a little research and ask the person up front his or her expectations of an intern. Find out what types of jobs you will be doing so you are prepared for how the internship will go.

                    Does the idea of this particular internship get you exited to learn more?

• This is a class that will last 11 weeks and you be dedicating at least 10 hours a week to doing.
• You should feel excited at the chance to do THIS internship.
• It shouldn't feel like you are doing it for credit or for an easy 11 weeks.
• I got involved with setting up my internship not realizing I would get credit at all.  I just really wanted to learn more than I would learn as just the team photographer.

At the end of the internship can you see yourself continuing on in that field?

• It really doesn't matter if you will or won't continue on in this type of photography.  During the process of being an intern you might learn that this field is not to your liking at all.
• The important part is at the start of your internship you should really feel like it is a possibility that you could love that type of photography.
• You should feel like no matter what happens you know you will leave that internship with knowledge that you can apply to any other field of photography that you choose to pursue.

The reality is this is a great opportunity and learning experience for you. It is something you can put on your resume.  Even if you don't find your dream job doing it you may make many new connections that can lead to your dream job. 

You can only do one internship at school through the school and some mentors will only uses interns.  So you want to make sure that you have really done your research to make sure this is a good choice for you before you accept the internship and start the process of getting your internship approved.

Next Friday will be the internship approval process start to finish!

As always please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments! I look forward to them!

Jessi