The College Internship Crisis, or How It Worked for Me

Before my sophomore year in college even began, I was already aware of my destiny for the summer after: an internship. There was no way to wheedle out of the prospect; it seemed as if every theater student at my school had either just come back from a summer internship or was already researching for their next one. There was not a seed of doubt in my mind that my sophomore summer would be spent working with a big-time theater company in New York City where I would be sitting in on rehearsals, learning the ins and outs of a professional theater company, networking like I never have before, and be so beloved that I would be remembered and highly considered for a job once I graduate. Well… perhaps the latter wasn’t in my original mindset, but it seemed to be for many of my friends. This was our chance to step out of academia and begin our careers!

Unfortunately for me, a semester studying abroad took my mind off of my seemingly mandatory summer internship until I realized that many of the big-time companies had already closed their doors to further applications. I was late in the game and had to make some quick moves if I were to spend my summer in the city. As friends received acceptance letters, I was still glued to my computer, waiting for an email, a notification that they had seen my résumé, anything. By the middle of May, I was terrified that my summer would be spent back at home working concert security and babysitting, as my friends were already moving into the city and beginning their internships. Those who know me, however, have witnessed my stubborn drive, and with one week left in May, I applied to ten very small internships I had little to no knowledge of. It wouldn’t be my dream summer, but at least I would be in New York and not at home.

What came to pass was the biggest lesson I’ve learned so far as a young adult. I had finally found an internship with Concrete Temple Theatre, a small company based in the city that uses visual arts, dance, puppetry, and music to create a repertoire of new theater works that tour the city as well as internationally. Not only do they tour, they also provide pre- and post-performance workshops in order to bring myth and ritual back to the center of dialogue. As a studying actor and director with a deep interest in multidisciplinary theater, I knew that this company would be the perfect fit. I had approximately six days to move into New York before I began working as an assistant to Artistic Directors Renee Philippi and Carlo Adinolfi, as well as Company Relations head Amy Rose Marsh. My life had been put into overdrive, and I dove head first into the world of subletting and housing arrangements. Long hours of searching and luck found me in a very affordable apartment in Harlem, and just one week after thinking my summer was ruined, I was working for a theater company and living by myself for the first time.

As studying young adults, we should not be looking at ways to squeeze into the business years before we are actually in it. We should use this time, the time when we aren’t expected to be working professionals just yet, to our advantage and learn whatever fits our individual needs.

I still remember my first conversation on the phone with Amy who, after welcoming me to the team, asked me, “What do you want to learn this summer?” It was the first time in my entire search for an internship that someone was asking me what I wanted to learn. I told her that I wanted to know the ins and outs of a professional theater company, and in my two months with Concrete Temple Theatre, that’s exactly what I did. My eyes were completely opened to the reality that is running a small theater company: the copious research for grants, rehearsal spaces, and venues, as well as the constant self-motivation required to reach your shows to new audiences through social media, blogs, and other websites. I was astounded at the amount of trust Renee and Carlo put on me to conduct a lot of major research, and as they were juggling plans to tour one show in New York while bringing another to Mexico City later in the year, I was figuring out the logistics of yet another endeavor, as well as doing my own research on future grants. I felt like an integral member of the company, and by the end of my summer, the fruits of my labor were very tangible.

To say that my entire internship experience this summer happened with Concrete Temple Theatre, however, is severely misleading. What I quickly came to learn is that my summer internship had many layers. It wasn’t just on-the-job training for a theatre company; it was on-the-job training for life after college. With an unlimited Metro card as payment for my part-time research for Renee, I needed to take on a job to pay for groceries, what I owed my father for fronting me two months of rent, and for new shows in New York I wanted to see on the side, if I could even afford them. In a similar scramble to the one I pulled off in late May, I handed out close to forty of my work résumés before luck grabbed hold of me and gave me a server job at Red Rooster, the restaurant of celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. To say finding that job was easy would be a crippling understatement. I almost worked harder to keep up with Red Rooster than I did with Concrete Temple Theatre, which I guess is a nod to the realities I will face in the future if I wish to create my own company while making enough money to live in New York City.

I soon came to realize that my original dreams were skewed. Hearing stories from friends about their big-time unpaid internships slowly turned from enthusiastic to jaded: hours were long, finding a job to offset living expenses was hard, job tasks were less creatively focused. I had even stumbled upon fellow HowlRound contributor Annah Feinberg’s article “Confessions of a Serial Intern,” in which she writes of her inability to be hired by any of the seven companies she interned for and the inherent problems of unpaid internships that are less about education and more about free labor. I was suddenly surrounded by a sense of animosity toward the internships that I thought were all part of the modern college plan. And yet, I was not sharing any of these feelings.

As I look back, I realize that I did not achieve the dream internship I had set out to find. I was not working at one of New York’s largest nonprofit theater companies. What I have realized, however, is that my dream was conceived when I was uneducated in what an internship should really be. As we all know, the ratio of graduating students with a degree in the arts to actual jobs in the arts is wildly unbalanced. As Annah Feinberg discovered, companies find many interns and, at the end of the day, will not have the capacity (or funding) to take all of them on as hired staff upon graduation. I can’t rightfully say what this means for me when I graduate in two years, but then again, I don’t believe that has anything to do with my summer internship experience. As studying young adults, we should not be looking at ways to squeeze into the business years before we are actually in it. We should use this time, the time when we aren’t expected to be working professionals just yet, to our advantage and learn whatever fits our individual needs. I have found myself fortunate to learn this lesson by chance. Moving forward in my academic career, I will continue to make decisions in this light. Where will I learn the most? What do I need to know before I’m living on my own without a curriculum or meal plan to hold me up? If there aren’t jobs in the preexisting theater world when I enter it, do I have the tools to potentially create my own?

I cannot learn these lessons by getting coffee for employees, filing paperwork, or running errands. Luckily, I never had to do any of those things this summer; my unintentional less-is-more approach ensured that. I wasn’t attempting to thrust myself into an established framework; I was creating one with a loving company that is on the rise. I have even agreed to continue my contribution to Concrete Temple Theatre when I am back in college this fall, and my managers at Red Rooster have been more than willing to let me come back and work for them when I’m in the city next.

For now, I return to a year’s worth of guaranteed educational programming. The cycle is repeating, and everyone my age is looking to line up his or her big-time internship for next summer. I have yet to think about what I’ll be doing come next May, but I will definitely be precise with where I choose to extend my education, in hopes of another dream summer.