Communication students receive a “Golden” internship opportunity

WCU student Tucker Horn was interning during the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver 2010

Students who are Communication majors at Western Carolina University have an excellent opportunity to receive real world experience. NBC is looking for students to work as interns in London during the 2012 Summer Olympics.

According to Gabe Nucci, assistant professor of Broadcasting at WCU, “this is part of a regular program done by NBC for years.”

It is used to support production and broadcasting among college students, and to search for future talent in the Communication field.

Though the internship is focused on TV broadcasting, it is not restricted to Broadcasting concentrations. Anyone in the Communication department is eligible as long as they meet certain requirements. Interns must be Communication majors with a 2.5 GPA and 90 hours of course work completed by the time the internship beings. They must also have completed TV Production I and an upper level Broadcasting class.

Interns will be broken down into different roles based on their qualifications. They may be developing content that will be broadcast on TV, sometimes they may be used for general production purposes, ands they may also be used as “runners,” people who bring information and statistics from one person to another.

Nucci admits that this internship does not guarantee any future offers from NBC.

“This internship leads to relationships that can lead to other opportunities. It can lead to a job, but probably not with NBC,” Nucci says.

Anyone offered the position should be prepared for anything. Students can look forward to long days full of hard work during the three to four week long internship. Nucci says that having a positive outlook is important to any student who wants this internship, as “hard work and fun aren’t mutually exclusive.”

This opportunity could potentially lead to further partnerships with NBC or other companies.

“This could be really important for WCU, it could put us on the map for other events,” says Nucci. “We could become a resource for NBC to find talent. It all depends on the students.”

The deadline for applications was Friday, March 11. Students should know whether or not they were chosen by April 1, 2011.