Fall 2004 Contents

Fall 2004 In Focus Home

Erin Orr '06, second from right, gathers with ESPN colleagues at the sports network's headquarters in Bristol, Conn. (click for larger view)

Alison Daulerio '06, second from right, takes a break with other interns on the set of ABC's The View. (click for larger view)

Summer of Discovery

From the roof of Fenway Park to the floor of the U.S. Senate, Dickinson interns struck television gold

When destiny called, Erin Orr ’06 didn’t hear the phone ring. She was riding a raucous lacrosse team bus to the last game of the Red Devils’ sizzling 2004 spring season. But when she finally got the message, it turned out that her dream of landing an ESPN internship—a prize that drew some 4,000 applications nationwide for just 100 openings—had come true.

Orr went into last summer’s internship a mere fan of sports, the Boston Red Sox in particular, but she soon found herself working ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecasts on hallowed ground at Boston’s Fenway Park. She checked camera angles, delivered cables and helped a cameraman set the “high first-base” and “high third-base” cameras at the very top of the ballpark.

“I was nervous standing on the roof of Fenway Park with a camera worth thousands of dollars under my watch,” Orr admits.

She also was made head of a 10-man crew when she was put in charge of lighting ESPN’s prestigious 25th anniversary show, which aired Sept. 6.

The internship went far beyond her expectations and stirred a personal transformation.

“I want to be an operations producer—before, I wanted to be a prep-school teacher,” the Simsbury, Conn., native says. “It really taught me how to stand up for myself,” she says. “My overall confidence in dealing with people just totally skyrocketed.”

Summer internships can be the chrysalis of careers. They can build the first bridge between the academic environment and real-world experience. They can seize all the diverse qualities within a liberal-arts student then affirm, or shift, life’s direction.

“Internships play a huge role. It’s a way for students to connect theory with practice,” says Rachel Spier, assistant Career Center director and internship coordinator. The best internships, Spier says, are those where students are doing career-related work—even if it’s a career they are just discovering.

About 58 percent of Dickinson students have an internship at some time in their college years and, if national internship trends are any indication, that percentage is a number on the rise, according to Pat Mullane, Career Center director.

As the U.S. and global economies change, internships are increasing in value, says Spier. They give employers in both for-profit and nonprofit sectors a pool of trained talent from which to pull experienced workers.

This summer, Dickinson interns did a wide variety of jobs. They worked at places like the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown, Pa., Mylan Pharmaceuticals in Morgantown, W. Va., and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

With internships, Spier says, no dreams are too immense if a student is dedicated to landing a big-time opportunity.

Ben Wiley ’05 worked the Senate beat on Capitol Hill as a field reporting intern for NBC Nightly News in Washington, D.C.

“At first, it was overwhelming,” he says. “They were extremely demanding, but they’d bend over backward for you,” said Wiley, a psychology major who now envisions potential careers in journalism and government. He’d like to be a Senate press secretary.

Wiley assisted NBC Senate correspondent Chip Reid, working with high-profile figures, like senators Ted Kennedy and Tom Daschle, and on key issues, like homeland security and the 9/11 hearings.

“It was an amazing experience. It was like a real reality show, where it took the work of almost 100 people to make less than 30 minutes of television,” Wiley says.

Alison Daulerio ’06 interned on the ABC hit daytime TV show The View.

“I was able to shadow producers, attend segment shoots, work with the audience, help with the tape department and observe the control room and the graphics room,” says Daulerio. “The internship made me more interested in a career in the television industry because [of what] it allowed me to experience.”

Brian Krist ’06 worked at Comedy Central in Los Angeles. While his duties were about 70 percent administrative (filing papers, making copies, dubbing tapes, etc.) and 30 percent creative, Krist says the best part “came after hours, when interns were expected to attend comedy performances as research for the network.”

But he didn’t get to meet The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. “Maybe next summer,” says Krist, who’s eager to help other students to get in Comedy Central’s door. “After this internship, I am somewhat inclined toward a career path in television, but not on the network side—a writing/producing path is more creatively oriented and not stuck to a corporate ladder,” says Krist.

Many internships don’t end when the summer’s done. ESPN asked Orr to work NFL games in Baltimore and Philadelphia. She hopes to fit pro football into her field hockey playing schedule and, over the holidays, she plans to hit the road with ESPN’s coverage of the NBA.

Orr says her internship changed everything. “I’m still on a high from it,” she says.

Spier says interns must keep an open mind. “Leave no stone unturned. Explore everything,” Spier says. “Make a list of your top 10 internship choices. Be realistic, yet shoot for the stars on the same list. Competition is pretty fierce for those big (internships), but Dickinson students are strong.”

You’ve got to be strong to stand on the roof of Fenway Park. -