Internships?

[vxtaper]

Hey guys and gals. I am curious to know if it is a common practice to offer internships in print shops. I have to complete 2 internships and I want to do one in a print shop and one in a design firm or ad agency. Thanks in advance for the info.

Danny

[DesignVHL]

Sure! My first internship was for a small printshop....it was paid though...try to find paid ones if you can ... nothing like having a bit of extra income while your in school! :) I worked design jobs constantly through school - not just for the experience, but for a little extra $ for supplies - and beer.

[budafist]

It's not common here - we pay people to work. How long must your internships be for?

I guess if the internships are short - say 8 to 40 hours only, then working for free to learn is fine, but if you are doing more than 40 hours I reckon it should be paid - even if it is minimal as you are still learning. After 40 hours of training you should be making them some money.

[CkretAjint]

I worked at an internship in a DESIGN FIRM, super creative place. Did I get to partake in any of it? No! They always gave me the grunt work, photo touch ups, draw sketches, files these papers, burn these disks. I hated it, it was SO annoying looking back on it. They didn't even realize when my last day there was. SO ANNOYING :mad: Not even 1 penny offered from them in tersm of pay either.


blah!

[PrintDriver]

My college internship was great. It was doing production work for a trash and trinkets company (fulfillment and corporate swag) but included real, if simple, projects. What a learning experience. It was only for 2 days a week (16 hours) but after the second week they offered to pay me.

[budafist]

Hmmm...now I think about it more, maybe I should edit my previous post...As part of my degree we had to do 60 hours of work experience. It was up to you and your employer whether or not there would be any payment. If it's part of your course requirements I guess it is ok. You can't expect the industry to accept and pay 100 students per year for them to fill in a course requirement.

If the internship is part of your degree, then fine. If the competition in your area is so great that you can't find paying work and need the experience to get your foot in the door, fine. But if you can get a job even with minimal pay, then it's better to learn on the job like that right? When they are paying you, they will try and make money out of you. When they make money out of you, you will be learning. When they don't pay you, the don't care if you sit around making coffee or tidying cupboards. Then you are not really learning anything.

I ended up working 1 short day per week for a little while at a tiny print company that mostly did wedding invites, thank you cards etc. There was just me and the owner. I learned plenty and was thrown in the deep end as I had more technical no how than the owner did. I learned very fast that designs aren't "my babies" they are the clients and you need to give the client what they want. You can't argue about fonts and colours with a bride to be anyway. A real wake up call for me for sure.

It was unpaid initially, but I also took some illustration work home to do which I got paid for. Then after my 60 hours was up the pay was too low and the hours too little to justify the 1.5 hour bus ride across town.

[Ovaltine]

I was not required by my school to do an internship, though it was recommended.

I did an internship at an ad agency near my home in KY (my college was in GA). It was great, and I got lucky, they were in desperate need of someone who could use an x-acto knife. They were afraid they were going to have to hire a freelancer, and that the project was going to take too long (a week). I got it done in a day and a half. They found I could do anything they asked of me (though they only once let me layout a mailer for "KOOL" cigs.)

Despite their policy of not letting interns work on the layouts and designs, I learned a lot. I was allowed to come and go as I pleased, and they were so pleased with my work that they threw me a party when I had to go back to school at summer's end. They told me I was welcome to come back any time I was home on holiday. They did not do this with any of the other interns they had during the years I worked there. They paid me per week, and the amount fluxuated depending on how many interns they had at the time, but like I said, I was allowed to come and go at will. I just happened to want to be there 8-5 most days of the week.

[vxtaper]

Thanks for the input everyone. As it turned out I had a intern position fall in my lap a few days after posting this topic. I wasn't planning on getting an internship until after the fall quarter but this seems like a good opportunity however it is unpaid. Its not with a printshop though, it's with a museum that does ALL the graphics work internally. I was shocked when I found out how much work is to be done. Im really excited and I hope it goes well. Thanks again.

Danny

[budafist]

Doing an internship early on in your degree is such a good idea. It means anything you learn at school from now on tends to make a lot more sense!

[Drazan]

Also paid or unpaid, it still counts as work experience. :)

[kerofung]

How do you go abouts looking for intern work? I've just graduated in graphic design but I've not had any work experience. Is there like a site that lists them or is it just a case of approaching studios individually?

[PrintDriver]

Your school should have set you up. Internships usually involve having a student advisor at the school and keeping a diary or writing a paper on what you learned. Check with your college to see if they have a placement service for graduates.

If you are out of school and looking for internships, you may be competing with students still in school, you may not be paid and you will start your career (a career where 'entry level' means 2 years of experience) behind the pack of students who got that done and over with while in College.

Not saying you won't find an internship but approaching people without the backing of a school could lead you into slave wage situations. Interview the company that is interviewing you.

[budafist]

Our school only set up internships for people that had no success finding internships on their own. Generally those people were the slackers.

Kerofung: contact businesses in your area and go from there.

[PrintDriver]

My school had a placement service for internships (their post grad service leaves a lot to be desired). You interviewed for an internship just like going for a real job. You didn't necessarily get one handed to you and you didn't necessarily get the one you had hoped for. I often wonder where I'd be if I hadn't learned production right out of the gate...

[mfn]

I got a BA in graphic design from State U.

I was required to do an internship as a class for credits for one semester, but most of the students in my class did alot more than that on their own.

I found one internship by talking to my teachers and they recommended a gd firm. I then contacted the firm (they had never had an intern before) and wrangled myself a position.

I did 4 internships at my college. One was working for the university print services, which took care of the printing needs of the college (that was the required one and a teacher placed me in that one). One was for the student newspaper, where I designed ads. I got that one by responding to an ad in the student paper. I also did web design for a special group affiliated with the university. I found that one through a boyfriend who used to work for them. My first job on campus was as a graphic designer's assistant, which I got thru my roomate, whose boss for HER on-campus job was married to a graphic designer who had a budget for an secretary (me).

After I graduated and had my first real-world paying job, I moved with my husband to a bigger city one state away. I asked my current bosses to introduce me to their contacts in the new city, and they did. I got wind from one of their contacts about an non-paying internship for a top-notch firm there, which I thought would lead to either a job or lots of contacts in the new city. It led to neither, and I think that I made a huge mistake there. I shouldn't have worked for no pay after graduating. I was about a year out of college at the time and still pretty naive about the whole working thing, and thought that I didn't have very much to offer an employer.

Most of my internships were found thru luck and networking, and about half were unpaid.