Q: I’m in my first year of graduate school and I am looking forward to getting a summer internship. My question is how do I go about it. A suggestion on the Free Press site said clips should come from the most recent year. I am lacking in this area and I fear that I won’t be able to gather the 6-10 clips necessary for a portfolio with the school work I have to complete. This was my problem also with my final year in undergrad (I just graduated in May). What do you suggest?
J. M., Gainesville
A: Simply put, you MUST get the clips. No editor will take excessive schoolwork as an excuse for not getting clips. It would make you appear to not know how to juggle different responsibilities, a key part of being a journalist, and it will leave you less qualified than many other applicants. Failure to meet the minimum requirement for clips will mean you won’t even get consideration. You just have to do it to compete.
Do any of your class assignments require you to do writing that you could satisfy with a published article? I used to sell a lot of my homework – not to fellow students, but to magazines and newspapers. I killed two birds with one piece of writing, got clips and sometimes got paid. Work with your writing professors to stretch class requirements so that the work you do for them is also the kind of work that editors want. If you get a class assignment published, it will likely even help your grade.
Good luck.