(Above right, Kate Drost)

By Barry McNamara

Brittany Alston

Increasingly, college students are using internships as a way to supplement their classroom education and gain valuable hands-on experience. Monmouth College communication and theatre arts majors Brittany Alston and Kate Drost are two prime examples.

Alston is off-campus this semester as she participates in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s Chicago Arts Program. Although the program, which requires her to create a new piece of art every week, is the main reason she’s in the city, Alston is enjoying a wide range of experiences, including an internship with the Fox Chicago television station.

On Mondays, Alston and her fellow art students gather to talk about each other’s works. “Tuesday and Wednesdays,” she explained, “are internship days, Thurdays we play (she has been to Lincoln Park Zoo and the Improv Olympics) and Fridays are core course days where we learn about the city of Chicago and deal with topics like racism and gentrification.”

She said her internship experience has been a positive one. 

“I knew that I had to get an internship for this semester in Chicago, and I’ve always had an interest in the media,” explained Alson, who lives just outside the city in Bolingbrook. “I looked online and just applied for the networks that I enjoyed watching when I’m at home. Fox Chicago contacted me and asked me to come in for an interview, and I got it!”

Alston arrives at her job by 5 a.m. to answer calls to the news desk.

“People call in to complain about the on-air talent or give story ideas or breaking news,” she said. “I also transfer calls from reporters out on the scene to their writers and I enter press releases into the future stories system.”

Occasionally, Alston attends morning meetings with all the producers and reporters, where that day’s news coverage is planned.

“On very special days, I get to go on the scene with a reporter,” she said. “The most exciting experience so far was when I was covering Oktoberfest with David Viggiano, the entertainment reporter, and he asked if I would like to come along on an interview with Kat Dennings and Michael Cera from (the new movie) ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.’ I’m a huge Michael Cera fan, so it was such a treat!”

A veteran now with nearly a month of experience, Alston admits to a nervous beginning.

“My first day on the job, I was terrified,” she said. “They kind of just expected us to jump in and start answering phones and what not, and I was so scared. But now, I answer the phones like I’ve been doing it for years.”

While she’s used to that routine, it’s taken her a little longer to get over the celebrities that she regularly sees.

“Every Tuesday, they have one of the Chicago Bears on the show, and they walk past the assignment desk where I work,” she said. “I’m a bit star-struck!”

The sophomore art major said she’s not certain if broadcast journalism is in her long-term future, explaining, “I think that I still have some other avenues of interest that I want to explore before I settle down.”

Not so for Drost, whose internship experiences tie right into her career goals.

“I want to do theater for the rest of my life,” she said, while sitting on the stage before practicing her part as Jenny in the upcoming Crimson Masque production of “The Shape of Things.”

Drost’s internship came this summer at Monmouth’s Buchanan Center for the Arts, as a creative drama teacher.

“It was fantastic!” said Drost, who credited theatre professor Janeve West with helping her change her major from English education to theatre. “I’ve never had so much fun. I’d worked in traditional classroom settings before, but this was so different. We’d play improv games, and the students were just so much smarter than you think they are. There’s nothing as fulfilling as making kids learn while they’re having fun. If they can live it, they can understand it. I could really see working in drama education as a possible career.”

The internship also included working on the technical crew for the Prairie Players’ production of “Dust and Dreams” at Galesburg’s Orpheum Theatre.

“I did set construction, lighting, running and maintaining microphones and then running body microphones during the run of the show,” she explained. “It’s the experience I was looking for. To be good at anything, you have to learn how to do the other side of it.”

In Drost’s case, the “real world” experience has led to “real world” employment.

“As a result of the internship, I’ve worked at princess pageants in the surrounding area, and I’m running follow spot for the Orpheum’s Red Carpet Series,” said Drost, a junior from Naperville.

Her internship was consistent with how she treats her time on campus.

“The more involved I am, the happier I am,” she said. “I try to involve myself with every aspect of theater. I’ve done costumes and make-ups and lights. I can’t not be in a show.”

Even for the times when there’s a direct conflict, such as not being able to have a role in the upcoming production of “Lysistrata” because of “The Shape of Things,” Drost finds a way to help.

“I’m the propmistress for ‘Lysistrata,’ and I’m probably going to run a board, too,” she said.

Besides preparing for her future with the internship, Drost also takes her elective courses into account.

“I’m taking a business class, because it will be a big help if I ever do something like opening a non-for-profit children’s theater in Chicago,” she said. “That’s why I love Monmouth and it’s liberal arts education so much.”

Two interesting internships are helping a pair of MC students get to the next place they want to be in their lives. The lessons they’ve learned and the people they’ve met are opening doors to the next parts of their journeys.