Media Studies major Ari Marks hosts his “Overnight Gumbo” show on WWOZ-FM radio in New Orleans, a listener-supported, volunteer- operated station. He also served as producer and engineer for the program and created its play list.

In what may be record numbers, students in the School left the campus in May and scattered throughout Colorado and the nation to hone their skills through internships.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” said Alan Kirkpatrick, the School’s internship director since 1997. “These are just the ones we know about. And who knows how many prejournalism majors also found media-related opportunities?”

He said he knows of 142 summer internships by School students in 18 states and Japan.

Kirkpatrick said he estimates that every summer, dozens of students in the School find internships or other professional experience that they don’t report, mostly because they are not receiving academic credit.

The number of students who obtain summer internships is slightly less than the combined total of fall and spring semester interns. There are more than 600 undergraduate and 100 master’s degree students in the School.

Kirkpatrick said that in recent years, it hasn’t been unusual for more than 100 students to find summer internships, but two statistics from the summer of 2004 appear to be unique.

“First is the number of students we had in the very top U.S. media markets,” he said. That includes eight in New York, six each in San Francisco and Chicago, five in Los Angeles and four in Washington, D.C.

Ilana Sochaczewski, second from left, with the other interns at the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in New York City.

“Advertising students particularly had success in landing internships in those cities. Of those 29 internships, 17 were done by Advertising majors, six by News-Editorial and Newsgathering students, five by Broadcast News majors and one by a Media Studies major,” Kirkpatrick said.

Students interned at such well known organizations such as FCB (Foote Cone & Belding) Chicago, Young Rubicam and SELF Magazine in New York City, Publicis & Hal Riney in San Francisco and Saatchi & Saatchi LA.

The other thing Kirkpatrick said stands out among the summer 2004 internship statistics is the number of Colorado cities and towns in which students did newspaper internships.

“As usual, there were a number of students interning at Denver, Boulder and other northern Colorado newspapers. But I’m certain we’ve never had so many interns at so many newspapers at one time, particularly on the Western Slope,” he said.

The numbers reflect the influence of the Colorado Press Association summer internship and scholarship program, he added.

“Our students have always competed well for the CPA newspaper internships. But during the past academic year, several of the students who were not selected for CPA internships kept working to acquire more clips, improve their application materials and apply at other Colorado newspapers,” Kirkpatrick said. “We had students not in the CPA program in Pueblo, Vail, Craig, Steamboat Springs and Ouray.”

CU journalism students were selected for CPA internships in Denver at The Colorado Statesman and in Craig, Glenwood Springs, Steamboat Springs, Durango, Cortez, Bailey, Salida, Palisade and Gunnison. Students selected for the CPA program received paid internships and $2,500 scholarships.

Other students from the School interned at newspapers in Denver (Denver Business Journal, The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News), Boulder (Daily Camera and Colorado Daily), Longmont, Fort Collins, Broomfield, Berthoud and Greeley.

Also, the Chips Quinn Program for Diversity in Journalism selected students in the School for newspaper internships in Greeley, Wilmington, Del., and St. Cloud, Minn., and the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund selected one student for a newspaper copy-editing internship in Fresno, Calif. Organizations at which other students interned included USATODAY.com and the Washington, D.C., offices of Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis.

Kirkpatrick noted that students continued to obtain a number of competitive local and national internships at broadcasting and cable organizations. Besides internships at Denver television stations, students interned at ABC and US Weekly in New York City, KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and “Meet the Press” in Washington, D.C.

Media Studies internships included ones for public radio in New Orleans and Edelman Public Relations in Chicago.

For a list of places SJMC students interned in the summer of 2004, go to www.colorado.edu/journalism/bylines/fall2004/schoolnews/intern_sites.html.

Alums throughout the U.S. interested in letting the School know about internships at their companies or participating in the SJMC alumni Career Network as a contact for new graduates should contact Beth Gaeddert at Elizabeth.Gaeddert@colorado.edu.