The Right Internship

Senior public relations major, Juliet Hulme knew that looking for, and landing the right internship wasn’t going to be easy. With an abundant amount of PR internship positions available, it was hard for her to narrow down and find just the right one. And while she had the necessary skills to succeed in a PR position, she needed a strong resume and cover letter to stand out against other candidates. This is where having RWU’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD) as a resource made all the difference.

The CCPD helps students with their internship and career path by providing students resources and networking opportunities that can help them lead to success. With help from the CCPD, Hulme was able to construct a strong, professionally worded resume and cover letter and received tips on how to present herself during an interview. That work paid off because Hulme secured a summer internship in sunny Newport, Rhode Island with the Newport Gulls baseball team that allowed her to deepen her understanding of public relations within a non-profit setting.

Hulme learned very quickly that her internship wouldn’t be the traditional PR internship of writing press releases and helping with research. To succeed, Hulme had to tap into her event planning and community outreach skills. Thank to the wide range of knowledge she’s learned in her courses, she was more than up to the task.

Hulme helped in the day-to-day field operations, such as pre-game ceremonies and the in-between inning mini-games. She coordinated the Baseball Buddies program, where little league players run out alongside a Gulls player before each game begins, and she worked to bring the baseball players into local elementary schools to read to students. Hulme’s biggest undertaking, however, was coordinating the 5-week youth summer camp. This required countless hours of registering children and validating payments, while also contacting local social services, schools and little leagues to distribute scholarships to children whose families didn't have the funds to participate in the camps.

“Public relations is all about creating relationships with people in the community that are mutually beneficial,” Hulme says. “Not only do you have to help out your client, but you’re working to make them look good in the eyes of the community, creating a good image for both yourself and the organization.”

The internship may not have taken the traditional PR role Hulme was expecting, but she says it allowed her to use what she learned in the classroom and put it into a real organization. This experience was exactly the right internship she needed for her career path, Hulme said, because it opened her eyes to working for a non-profit organization in the sports industry – a track she hadn’t considered before.