Local Agencies Offer Internships

For many UT advertising students, internships provide both a dose of real-world experience and the chance to get a foot in the door with a potential employer. Each semester finds many Austin-area businesses offering internship opportunities, the majority of which are filled by undergrads. However, a number of graduate students seek internships, too.

For graduate students in advertising, internships often come from two local agencies: SicolaMartin or GSD&M. One second-year master's student, Christiana Mavromatis, even serves as SicolaMartin's Internship Coordinator, a position she has held for about a year. As Internship Coordinator, Christiana recruits and interviews potential interns, organizes weekly intern seminars, and finds and manages a group project for the interns each semester.

These group projects give SicolaMartin interns a chance to act as an "agency" of their own to complete such tasks as designing T-shirts for the Special Olympics Torch Run and creating a logo for Austin's 2001 Earth Day celebration. This spring, SicolaMartin interns will be creating two billboards for a San Marcos bowling alley. SicolaMartin offers internships in various areas, depending upon which employees volunteer to be "mentors" each semester. For instance, if an art director wants to be a mentor one semester, then SicolaMartin will offer an internship in art direction. However, there's no guarantee that such an internship will be available on a continual basis. Lucy Zarlengo, a first-year graduate student in advertising, currently interns in account services at SicolaMartin and has positive things to say about her experience so far. According to Lucy, she's receiving the chance to learn about advertising from an agency perspective and "to affect a real client in a real way." The only downside is that Lucy's internship is unpaid, though the agency expects to start paying its interns sometime soon. Unfortunately, such a decision could also result in fewer internship opportunities overall, as SicolaMartin's budget might not support compensation for its current average of 18 to 20 interns per semester.

At GSD&M, interns are already sent home with paychecks. Mandy Jahnke, a GSD&M intern who will earn her master's degree in May, admits that her hourly rate won't exactly finance a trip to Europe. Like most graduate students, though, she appreciates all the financial help she can get. As an account services intern on the Southwest Airlines account, Mandy helps code ad reels, organize scripts and respond to client requests. Though her official responsibilities are limited to one client, GSD&M's open workspace puts her in the midst of the action on other accounts, too. According to Mandy, "The open office area is really friendly and good for communication." She says her internship gives her an insider's view of the account services sector and provides valuable experience for her resume and job interviews. GSD&M offers internships in all areas of advertising, and like SicolaMartin, the agency provides a semester-long project that interns work on together. (This semester, GSD&M's 47 interns will be creating an orientation handbook for future interns.) GSD&M is also establishing a shadowing program so that interns can observe and learn from their counterparts in other agency departments. For both GSD&M and SicolaMartin, it's definitely true that internships can open doors. These positions are active recruiting mechanisms at both agencies, and a fair number of interns become full-time employees after they graduate. For more information about internships at one of these agencies, contact Christiana Mavromatis at SicolaMartin or Nikki Joza, HR Generalist/Intern Coordinator at GSD&M. General information on internships is available from the College of Communication's Career Services office. 3/21/2001