Connections Newsletter


Internship Opportunities in Multimedia

By Peter Herbst, Matt Rud, and Troy Bargenquast

Advertising

Each area of study in the Communication department has its own internship adviser. Professor Kristine Kranenburg is the adviser for advertising internships. She has vast knowledge and experience in the field and knows how extremely important internships are for students in this major.

Today, employers expect to see at least one internship on potential employee's resumes. Many students complete more than one and graduates who don't partake in any are at a disadvantage when searching for a job. Professor Kranenburg stated, "A good internship will be one that matches the student's area of interest, creative vs. media vs. account vs. research, and gives the student the opportunity to do real work, as opposed to fetching coffee and answering phones." You should try to look for a company that you could see yourself work for after graduation. "If your dream is to work at a big ad agency in a big city, then you should try to get that type of internship. Just being in that environment will let you know if it's the right career path for you or not." Who you know is another very important part of the internship. "Many companies only hire someone that they know. If the intern makes a positive impression, there is a very good chance for permanent employment with the company after graduation."

There are several internships in many different regions around the Whitewater area. You can find several in Madison and Milwaukee, but students have found some that are more local. Some have found internships here on campus, in Whitewater, Fort Atkinson, Jefferson, Janesville, Beloit and many other nearby towns. "Some of the places our students have interned include sports organizations (Milwaukee Brewers), ad agencies (Knupp & Watson, Seroka & Associates), publications (Reader's Digest, Cygnus Business Media), radio stations (WMIL 106.1 Milwaukee, 105.9 The Hog), non-profit groups (St. Coletta of Wisconsin, SHARE Wisconsin), and many others." Many of the internships are unpaid but there's sometimes a lucky few that get compensation.

Journalism 493A "fulfills one of the elective requirements for ad majors and minors. In addition to the work done for the internship sponsor, the student also complete some assignments and get evaluated by a supervisor. Students must put in at least 150 hours at the internship. Some students do their internships over the summer. Others complete them during the fall or spring semester while taking classes at UW-W." Just remember that internships can be done without any connection to the university or to Journalism 493A but could be an option for students who are looking for another elective.

Students should always be looking out for internship opportunities. Professor Kranenburg listed a few sites to help students find an internship that is right for them:

Students should also look up the websites of any companies or agencies that they are interested in and see if there are any listings or people they can contact. Also, it wouldn't hurt to make a call to the company and see if they are hiring interns. Career and Leadership Development on campus is another helpful option for students to check out. Otherwise, if students are interested in pursuing or have any questions about an internship they can contact Professor Kristine Kranenburg.

Game Zombie

GameZombie.TV is a good opportunity for students in the new Multimedia program Media Arts and Game Development MGDA, or any one in the Communication Department, GameZombie.TV is an original web based series about video games. They conduct reviews and interviews of videos games biggest events and people in the gaming industry. It can be seen on YouTube and many more video sharing web sites. "It's my baby," says Spencer Stuart, an instructor in the communication department. They video conference with Indiana University, where GameZombie.TV is based.

PlayExpo

One way to get potential employers to look at your hard work that you have done throughout the year is the PlayExpo held annually right here at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The PlayExpo accepts all sorts of projects of interactive media including 3D, 2D, audio, virtual, and animated creative work. The categories for the PlayExpo cover everything from games in any digital medium being judged on how fun they are to play to a serious game category, which is judged on how interesting/innovative the communication of the message is. Of course, there is also a People's Choice Award,which is chosen by everyone that comes to the PlayExpo.

How to get into the PlayExpo is easy. All you have to do is go to the PlayExpo website at www.playexpo.org and submit an online submission form and wait to see if your project gets picked. After the project is in the event, it is looked at by a panel of judges and the projects are ranked accordingly. The judges this year include members from UW-Whitewater such as Elena Bertozzi and Jeff Herriott and also include guest judges from companies such as Raven Software, Jellyvision, and Filament Games. Other judges also include members from Ohio University, Quinnipiac University, DePaul University and the University of Wisconsin.

One of the main attractions of this year's PlayExpo is their yearly speaker Veronica Gonzalez who is feature producer at Electronic Arts. She will be speaking at the event about her past experiences at Electronic Arts as an operations producer dealing with localization, legal submissions, ESRB ratings and also helping design such games as Sims 2 Castaway and SimAnimals in her current title of a feature producer for both games.

There are always a large amount of entries that get submitted to the PlayExpo each year so the sooner you get your project into submission the better. Past winners have gotten jobs with such companies as Raven Software and Jellyvision so the opportunity for a good job is there and you might be able to earn some extra cash with $200 up for grabs.