See and Be Seen

I learned a lot today. Or maybe I should say I re-learned a lot today. I had to go to an Intern Orientation thing at 30 Rock today. I wasn’t looking forward to it because I’ve been through it before and I knew what they were going to say. But now that it’s over, I’m so glad I went. It’s always good to get a little reminder of the opportunities you have as an intern—IF you choose to take advantage of them.

NBC Universal takes amazingly good care of its interns. There are many workshops to go to for help with interviewing skills, career direction, resume help, networking, etc. They don’t think of interns as free labor at all. So after being reminded about all of these great opportunities, I decided to head into the office for a little chat with my supervisor.

My supervisor is awesome. She’s a senior producer and really knows her stuff. She keeps me in mind when good opportunities come up and trusts me with important tasks. So I asked her today for some feedback on how I’ve been doing and what more I can do. She was very positive about all of my work and she actually mentioned the possibility of a job (not internship—job!) over the holidays. Nothing definite at all, of course, but it means a lot to me that she’d actually consider me. She also gave me some advice on who I should contact to learn more about who to talk to at NBC affliliates for possible jobs after graduation.

To sum up what I’ve learned today, it’s “See and Be Seen.” A great motto, especially for internships. I want to do a lot of “seeing.” By this I mean, watch the way the show runs while we’re on-air, check out the process a producer goes through to create a package, see how the anchors prepare and perform. Basically, observe everything I can. And by “Be Seen,” I mean that I want people to know my name and my face. I want to make sure that I make some sort of contact with as many people as I can. And not just the people in power (although, they might be the first I’ll try to get to “see” me) but everyone I can. Whether that be the security guard, the secretary, the camera man, or the pages. Because frankly, they tend to be really fun, interesting people, and you never know where they’re headed or where they can possibly take you.

That’s all my inspiration for today.