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Profile
of Kate Rath, Intern, Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, 8/08
by Graham Thomas
PPW/Writing Center Publicity Intern
Kate Rath, a senior at Pitt, was an intern in the Youth and Arts Communication Department at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild (MCG) over the summer of 2008. As a Media and Professional Communications major, Kate decided to complete the PPW certificate because she feels it will help her find a job when she graduates. At her internship at MCG, Kate spent most of her time writing press releases, promoting events, and editing.
MCG is a non-profit organization that hosts art classes for students and adults. MCG works closely with Pittsburgh Public Schools to provide free after-school art programs for students. MCG hosts exhibitions, artists-in-residence, and artist talks. The founder, Bill Strickland, believes in the importance of teaching a teenager art as an outlet. It’s a warm, creative environment and the teaching artists are all very passionate about what they do.
Although Kate was already writing press releases her first day and found it difficult in the beginning to find the voice of the organization in her writing, she eventually got in to the groove and “learned a ton of real world experience.” The highest satisfaction she got from the internship was to see to see events that she helped promote in a newspaper or to see a finished brochure that she wrote the copy for. Kate says, “I communicated with a lot of the press, which I thought was pretty important. A lot of things that I wrote ended up going out to the public, so I was very pleased.” Plus, she now has a ton of copy for her portfolio.
Kate says the internship really prepared her for the real world, much more than any class would. She also agrees that an unpaid internship is priceless, because it made her much more comfortable when finding a job upon graduation. Furthermore, Kate anticipates a couple more internships on her resume before she graduates, and is currently applying at the Carnegie Library. With career aspirations of working in promotions at a record label, mixed with her love for radio communications, Kate feels the PPW internship at MCG has benefited her greatly by giving her necessary experience and a feel for a real-world work environment.
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