W&M in Washington: First week

Thursday September 2, 2010

It’s been exactly eleven days since the Fall 2010 class of “New Media and Culture in the Nation’s Capital” has besieged the nation, and almost all sixteen of us have started our internships. With the exception of our White House and C-Span interns (it appears that the government likes to take things at a slower pace), the rest of us have nervously waited for THE day– our first day of our internship that is. And now funnily enough, our first week is over. How time flies.  Most of us might have feared about our first day turning into D-day, but after comparing notes, it turns out that most of us had a successful first week. I’m sure that Adam Anthony, the Director for the W&M Washington Office, had something to do with this. His first brown bag seminar prepped us on interacting with professionals in the ‘real world.’ He also equipped us with handbooks: The Intern Files: How to get, keep, and make the most of your internship by Jamie Fedorko.  It’s a quick but highly entertaining read that presents itself as a manual of sorts. It also may or may not use reverse psychology to create successful interns.

Here is a list of the internship sites we’re working at, and yes, I’ve created links for all of them for you to click on if you’re interested in the organization:

American Film Institute Silver Theatre and Cultural Center
Arena Stage
C-Span
Downtown DC Business Improvement District
Evolving Communications
Environmental Film Festival
National Endowment for the Arts
NBC Washington Bureau (Yay!)
Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting
The Spanish Embassy Warning: It’s all in Spanish, but I suppose that’s to be expected.
The Washingtonian
The White House (So excited for Rachel to meet Obama!)

If you want, you can put a name to these Washington scholars and their internships.

Before all of the crazy madness of internships came upon us, our class was treated to a three-day orientation extravaganza. It was freshman year all over again, only better. To welcome us into the city, we bowled, ate, ate some more, and then some (the W&M DC office really knows how to feed you–I won’t go too much into the Ping Pong Dim Sum restauraunt we went to in Chinatown–only that there came a point when all of us students succumbed to food coma). Our class also went on a day long DC scavenger hunt, which would’ve fulfilled all expectations of a reality TV show, in my personal opinion. Amazing Race, anyone? While the scavenger hunt literally drained us of energy, Roxane and Katie—the program director and manager of the DC program managed to include two more activities, physical activities no less—kickboxing and kayaking on the Potomac. I’m sure that once schoolwork and internships become intense, I’ll think fondly back to those brief stress-free days—but for now, I’m much too excited about my internship at NBC.