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The Value of Internships: Gaining Experience and How One Leads to the Next
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- [00:03]
A
You know the Robertson family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty. Now Hillsdale College offers you the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they dive deep into Hillsdale's online course, the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives. Learning from Hillsdale professor of English Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience we call Unashamed Academy. Visit unashamedforhillsdale.com and enroll today. That's unashamedforhillsdale dot com to experience the Genesis story alongside the Robert.
- [01:16]
B
Hello there and welcome to beyond the Bubble, a podcast by Career Services to connect alumni with current students. My name is Chloe Noeller and I'm here with Elizabeth Mitchell, 2024 graduate. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us today.
- [01:28]
C
Thank you so much, Chloe.
- [01:30]
B
Well, I'd love to just start off, tell us about your Hillsdale career. So you graduated in 2024. What was your major? What did you do here? What were you involved with?
- [01:39]
C
I majored in politics and minored in journalism. My main extracurricular was I did the collegiate all four years. I started off as a writer my freshman year and then I was assistant news editor my sophomore year, news editor my junior year and then I went on whip my spring semester and then I was the editor in chief senior year. I also was a member of Chi Omega and I went to College Baptist.
- [02:05]
B
Amazing. So currently you're the White House correspondent for the Daily Signal. Can you tell us about your job?
- [02:13]
C
Yes. So it has been such an exciting job. I started covering the White House specifically in February. I was previously at the Daily Signal, but I was covering more of the social issues related topics and then switched to the White House after President Trump's inauguration. And so the day to day job looks very different based on what's going on in the President's schedule. Each night I will get the president scheduled for the next day, I would say between 9pm and 11pm so it varies a lot and I don't know what I'm going to do the next day until I get that email. So that's always fun. Keeps you on your toes. And so some days there's a press briefing with Caroline Lovett. And so on those days I'll get to the White House and I'll work from there until the briefing starts, come up with questions and then if I get a question or I'll just write an article about the briefing after that. I also am often on pool with the President, which Means being part of the group of press that follows him around to more events that aren't to open. It's just the general press corps. And so when I do that, I'll come up with questions as well for the President and then I'm just genuine generally. Also covering the day to day moves of the executive branch and then working on more enterprising stories as well, trying to get ahead of what's going to happen and break some news.
- [03:28]
B
Wow, that sounds like so, so much all the time. I'm just curious, can you walk us through how you got to where you are now? What did your internships look like in college and how did you end up at the Daily Signal?
- [03:43]
C
Absolutely. I think that my time at the Collegiate was super huge to going me wanting to go into journalism because I just really loved doing it throughout college and I think it was really nice that we when I graduated, I of course missed Hillsdale. But my favorite thing I did at Hillsdale, being a Collegiate, is what I do for career now. So that's really awesome. As far as internships go, the Hillsdale journalism program was super helpful in getting all those internships. After my freshman year, I did a remote journalism internship for a publication called the Center Square that has state based news. So I was covering Arizona for them, which is funny. I was living in Florida and I've never been to Arizona, but I learned a ton from that experience about writing, covering the news, APC style, all of that. And then after my sophomore year, I lived in D.C. for the first time and interned for the Washington Free Beacon through the National Journalism Center. And then my junior year I went on wip. In the spring I interned for the Daily Signal where I work now. And then in the summer I interned for Fox News. And then throughout my senior year of college I freelanced for the Daily Signal. So I was writing about three stories a month for the Daily Signal. And then they had a job opening after I graduated. So I started right in June after graduation.
- [05:05]
B
Over the course of your internships, what were some things that you realized are really essential in this field of journalism? What are some things you learned that you feel like you're carrying now into your current career?
- [05:17]
C
I think each internship definitely gave me very valuable learning experience experiences. I would say I really just learned how to write a news story in my first internship. The Washington Free Beacon internship really showed me the value and how to do investigative journalism and why we need more of that. And it's just such a wonderful feeling to be the first one to break a story. And I really learned that there at the Daily Signal. Since I had more experience than in my other two, I think I was able to definitely do the best work in that internship and learned a lot about being in a work environment and about how to balance a lot of different priorities at the same time. Quicker news stories, longer form investigative stories, that kind of thing. And I think from all my internships, the main two pieces of advice I would probably give is one, just really, if you try to just write as much as you can, get as much, do as much as you can, just always come up with ideas of things you can do and do them. And secondly, to just consider yourself and hold yourself like you're a full time employee, because if you do that, people might even forget you're an intern and then they'll definitely want to hire you.
- [06:32]
B
A lot of people at Hillsdale would love to go to dc, get work in politics or journalism, something like that. Now, I mean, you're on the ground in D.C. so what's, what's life like there right now during this exciting time of change and reform? I mean, and also the government shut down right now. So what's that like for you?
- [06:50]
C
It is a great time to be in D.C. it's definitely gotten a lot safer with the National Guard on the streets and so that's encouraging. The shutdown is definitely making things a little bit more boring because you can't go to a national park, can't go to a museum, etc. But overall, I totally recommend living in D.C. having a Hillsdale community here already is so helpful. 10% of my graduating class is, is in D.C. so it was really helpful to not come, not move to a place where I didn't know anybody, but to already have a group of friends to hang out with. That's super helpful. And DC just has so much to do, not only in the city, but also the surrounding areas of Virginia, Maryland, even West Virginia. There's just so many things to do in nature and I've really loved living here so far.
- [07:36]
B
So you mentioned all of the things that you have to balance as the correspondent. Right. You, you know, you get your schedule at 9 o' clock at night, you're not really sure what you're doing the next day. And D.C. itself is very busy. So how do you maintain a work life balance in such a fast paced environment? How is that for you?
- [07:54]
C
Definitely difficult. I think when I first started doing the White House job, it was very difficult to ever stop doing it and thinking about it because the news cycle Especially with President Trump really is 24 hours. He's always breaking some news. So. So I think I've just learned how to determine what is a big enough priority to be worth doing on the weekend or after work hours. If it's something huge happens, definitely need to go ahead and cover that. But I try to largely, when I'm not on the clock, try to take a little break from reading every single thing that happens, unless something big happens so I can be present where I am.
- [08:31]
B
Do you think your Hillsdale education has helped you with that or made it harder?
- [08:36]
C
Yeah, I think Hillsdale students are really. Most Hillsdale students are pretty busy when they're at Hillsdale doing a lot of different things with classes, social activities, extracurricular, sports maybe. There's just so many things to be involved in at Hillsdale. So I do think when Hillsdale students get into the real world, they're very prepared to manage having a lot of responsibilities both at work and outside of work and making it all work.
- [09:05]
B
What's the community like amongst the press? So you're, you know, you're with a bunch of representatives from a bunch of different press organizations. So what's that like for you, and how have you been able to make friends and work well with your colleagues? How has that been for you?
- [09:20]
C
Yeah, that's been really fun. The press, the White House press spends a lot of time together, and I was nervous about how that was going to be because, of course, it's an extremely competitive environment. Everyone is kind of going after the same sort of stories. So it's very fast paced, very intense. But I've generally found interactions with the press to be very pleasant. There's a little group of journalists who are from similar outlets to mine, who are friends, will get lunch after briefing sometimes. And it's always great to have that encouragement of people who you can talk to while you're there. And I've found that even the mainstream media, I think, have been pretty encouraging. A lot of them are very experienced and have been helping, helpful for me. I've gone on some trips, some press pool trips with the president and the vice president. And so that'll be a pretty diverse group of media. And it's always really fun to get to know people who have a job that's pretty different than yours for a different outlet. They, you know, have a very different life. But it's always fun to learn more about a lot of different people. I think that's something cool about the White House job is, you know, more people than just at your news outlet, you get to know the entire White House press course. So that's pretty cool.
- [10:36]
B
Has there been anything surprising in your job that you weren't necessarily prepared for? Something that as students are looking to get into journalism or political journalism, specifically, something that they should be aware of, something that you didn't expect, but you've had to deal with coming to this job.
- [10:53]
C
When I was in college, I was not aware of how common it is for journalists who primarily do print, which is what I do, of course, writing articles, not a broadcaster or something like that, to do TV interviews. So that was something that I was surprised by. But it really is something that pretty much all journalists are doing is a lot of TV hits. And so I think that's probably been one of the biggest areas of growth I've had over the past year, is becoming more confident talking on TV and making points like that in a verbal way instead of a written way, kind.
- [11:27]
B
Of shifting a little bit, talking more about D.C. itself. What has the faith community been like in D.C. and how have you found that you've been able to maintain, remain steadfast in your values? What's the community like there that you found?
- [11:41]
C
It's very encouraging. There's a lot of Christians in dc, a lot of people who. That's something that's very important to their lives, really, in all different fields across dc, Particularly in the conservative movement, of course. And my husband and I joined Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and we've really been enjoying being members of a church, and there's so many great churches to get involved in in dc, so I definitely recommend doing that.
- [12:06]
B
So for advice for Hillsdale students, specifically, as they're in college, what are you recommending for anyone looking to get into journalism, political journalism? Obviously, you spent a very long and successful career in the collegian, but what would you recommend that they avail themselves of while they're here at Hillsdale?
- [12:24]
C
The opportunity to get clips, which is like journalistic writing samples while you're in college, is super important because when you're applying for jobs, they won't care very much about, you know, what job, what experience, what, what you majored in, what your GPA was. Really the most important thing is going to be those writing samples. So I think writing for the collegiate of gives you those writing samples and you have the opportunity to have someone edit them so that they are really good when they are in the final version. And then also recommend, I'd say that's a really good thing to do. And then doing journalism internships is huge, especially during college. You just learn so much through that. And even if you don't want to work at the news outlet that you interned at, just the connections that you'll make. Everyone knows each other in D.C. all the editors know each other. People change jobs all the time. So you just never know when you might end up working with someone who you interned with in the past. My, like, work best friend did an internship with me three years before, and you just have no idea. So I think just any kind of experience you can get, people you can get to know in journalism is super helpful.
- [13:27]
B
Are there specific internships or experiences you recommend people search for? As far if they're going on WIP or if they're looking to do a summer internship? What do you recommend?
- [13:37]
C
I would definitely recommend doing the National Journalism Center. It's through yaf. They have a journalism internship where you do the internship four days a week, and then on Fridays you go to journalism classes and they give you a stipend, which is really helpful so that then you're not doing an unpaid internship in dc, which can be tricky. So I recommend that a lot to people who are interested in journalism. I, of course, would recommend the Heritage foundation internship a lot. That's a really great program where you get to learn a lot even outside of the department that you're in due to the various lectures that happen. And so I would say those are two really great programs.
- [14:12]
B
What classes did you find the most helpful for your development in writing and journalism?
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C
Advanced writing with Mr. Miller is probably the best class I took at Hillsdale. I would recommend that to everyone, not just people studying journalism. It is just incredible. You learn so much, your writing improves so much. It's a hard class, but totally worth it, really recommend. I also thought the political journalism class Mr. Miller teaches every election year was super helpful, especially being younger. If you haven't been following politics closely, you know, since George Bush or whatever, it's helpful to take that class because it catches you up on the history of politics in the past couple decades or so. I think those classes were the ones that were most helpful. I really enjoyed my Shakespeare and politics class with Dr. Carrington. That was a favorite class that I took probably in the politics major. But yeah, just so many amazing classes at Hillsdale. I also think that the grammar class in the education department was helpful for journalism, Kind of a surprising one, because it really helps you with your sentence structure and your writing a lot.
- [15:23]
B
What is one thing that you wish you had known either before starting at Hillsdale and looking to where you are now or even starting the job that you're in currently. Looking back, what's one thing you wish that you had known going in?
- [15:36]
C
I think you just never know where what you're going to end up doing. I would just not hold on too tightly to any plans because you just never know what God has in store for you. I would have never expected to be covering the White House as I'm doing now. It was not part of my plan at all, but I'm really enjoying it learning so much. So I would just say just be open to whatever comes your way because you just have no idea what will come.
- [15:58]
B
Sounds good. Also, as far as classes goes. What? That's all the time we have for today. Elizabeth, thank you so much for your time. I've been Chloe Knoller with alumni Elizabeth Mitchell on the Career Services beyond the Bubble podcast. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next time.