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Justin Schussler may only be an intern at MTV’s VH1, but between the commute and the eight-hour workday, he feels as if he is a full time employee.
The senior media production major wakes up at 6 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays and leaves at 6:50 to catch the 7:28 train out of New Haven.
Schussler arrives in New York City a little after 9:00 a.m. He then walks five blocks to the VH1 building in Times Square, which takes another half hour. The rest of the day is spent uploading and managing content for VH1’s website. Some of the things he manages include the Top 100 Artists and the Top 100 Music Videos. When quitting time rolls around at 5:30 p.m., he catches the 6:04 train and begins the long commute back home.
“I’m pretty much gone from 6:30 to 8 at night, so it’s a really long day,” Schussler said.
Students like Schussler enroll in internships to meet contacts, pad their resumes and get a taste of the real world, and it also fulfills the requirement of an internship in the school of communication’s curriculum.
However, this taste of the real world doesn’t come cheap.
Schussler pays $37 for a roundtrip peak train ticket and $10 for daily parking at the station in New Haven, in addition to buying lunch.
“You’re looking at $50 or $60 just to go there one day to work for free, plus I’m paying for the credits,” Schussler said. “It sucks because MTV doesn’t reimburse for travel, so I’m not getting anything.”
Matt Galo, a senior media production major previously interned at NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” in 2008 where he received a travel stipend. His current employer, Universal’s Focus Features, is where he now shoulders the bus and subway for his commute, an unwelcome change.
“It was kind of like I was paying to intern for them,” Galo said. “The school’s already charging you for credits to take it, which is required. They kind of got you between a rock and a hard place there.”
Internship credits do not actually cost students extra, as they count as a fifth course for a given semester, said Associate Professor of Media Studies, Lisa Burns. Students can work their internships into their schedule if they have the spare credit time, however those who want to take an internship with a full schedule must pay the overload price for credits.
On managing other costs, Burns suggests that students take their internships during the summer, when they have more time to earn extra money through part time jobs.
“It’s certainly a tricky situation,” Burns said. “Students need to weigh all the costs and benefits and see what works best for them. You don’t want to spread yourself thin.”
Asking an employer to chip in for travel never hurts either, she added.
“Sometimes it’s worth asking even if they don’t say [so originally].”
When Professor of Communications and internship coordinator Grace Levine advises students on where to intern, she urges them to heavily weigh factors such as time and cost of travel.
“Some placements will pay for travel,” Levine said. “That’s ideal, but many do not, especially those that know they’re attractive to a lot of people.”
Despite complaints about costs and commuting, most of the students agree that the internship experience is worth it.
“I really have met people that have changed the way my future is going to be shaped,” Caitlin Goldberg, a junior film, television and interactive media major, said. For the past two semesters Goldberg has been an intern at the Connecticut Film Center in Stamford.
Although she made the trip two to three days a week last semester without a travel stipend, the Film Center now covers the cost of her commute as Goldberg decided to continue her employment for a second semester without receiving credit.
Schussler hopes that despite the costs there will payoffs that don’t come in the form of a travel stipend.
“What is good about it is, I’ve been meeting people in production, because I don’t want to be sitting in front of a computer,” Schussler said. “I want to be out there shooting.”
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