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Profile
of Christina Fumo, Intern, Carnegie Library, 12/08
by Graham Thomas
PPW/Writing Center Publicity Intern
Christina Fumo interned at The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh during the fall of 2008. As a Communications major, she decided to complete the Public and Professional Writing Certificate because it will greatly compliment her degree and agrees that it is the best decision she has made while at Pitt.
Christina learned of the interview through Pam O’Brien, who also helped set up the interview. Christina went into the interview prepared, with copies of her resume and examples of her writing, which she feels helped secure the internship.
At the internship, she wrote various communications materials for the Library. These include brochures, posters, flyers, and bookmarks requested by the different departments and branches of the Library. She also spent a lot of time writing press releases and copy for the new Hill District Library. Besides this writing, she Christina proofread copy and the weekly employee newsletter. In addition, she assisted the Event Director with three events. She feels her most important task was updating the bulletin board at the Main Library. For this, her duties were to take materials that the Project Coordinator received from different organizations, such as events and programs, and choose what to put up on the board.
Although the internship presented Christina with plenty of responsibility, it was surprisingly relaxed. As long as Christina completed her work and showed up on time, she says that her supervisor rarely hassled or even checked on her while at work. She explains, “I check in with my boss when I arrive to get my projects for the day and then hand in my work when I am done.” Christina admits that it is nice to work alone, but if she were to have done things differently, she would have tried to interact more with the other employees to develop more meaningful relationships with them.
Christina strongly feels that internships are definitely worth it. “With PPW internships, you not only learn new writing skills, but you actually have the hard copies of examples that can be presented at future interviews,” she explains. In the spring of 2009, she plans on interning at Lux Magazine in Brentwood, where she will be an editor. |
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