I am currently completing an internship with Gemini Wordsmiths and I have to say, I couldn’t have hoped for a better internship. This internship heavily focuses on teaching me about the editing/publishing industry and ensures that they are providing me with projects that I deem useful for my future career. After graduation, I hope to go into the editing/publishing industry. Before this internship, I didn’t have much experience or knowledge of the field, but after completing 15 weeks, I feel that I have learned so much and even have a better idea on what career I hope to pursue after college. I went into this internship thinking that I wanted to go into copy editing. However, after working with Gemini Wordsmiths, I think I would rather pursue a career in book publishing. Not only has this internship taught me so much about the editing/publishing industry, but they have also helped me determine where I want to take my next steps and how I want to start the next chapter of my life.

My linguistic courses have played a major role in my success with this internship as I completed multiple projects in editing authors’ manuscripts. Many of my literature courses also played a major role in my success when it came to projects of recommending publication and research of authors. My degree has set me up for success for my career after college and I couldn’t be happier with my choice.

This internship has challenged me with new experiences in order to gain new skills. One of the projects I was given was to create a monthly newsletter. I had never created a newsletter before and was unsure of how to start. After sitting down with me and going over step-by-step what a newsletter entails, I was much more confident in completing this project and gained new skills to apply on my resume.

Throughout my experience with this internship, I was not only able to apply my relevant coursework to complete projects, but I was also able to expand on my hard and soft skills and gain more knowledge on the editing/publishing industry.

Throughout my college experience, I have developed skills in research, copywriting, copyediting, time management, attention to detail, organization, communication, and independence. A project that I think exemplifies these skills is a project where I was asked to be the first reader for a newly submitted manuscript. For this project, I read the entirety of an author’s draft to their manuscript, fact checked authors to ensure they were truthful in their previous work, researched books similar to theirs to see if they have been successful, and gave a full recommendation on whether or not the internship should follow through with publication. With this project alone, I was able to apply my skills of research, copywriting, time management, and organization as well as gain hands-on experience with the publishing industry. My degree has allowed me to apply recently acquired skills to the success of my internship. When I first applied to be an English major, I questioned if it was the right decision. Everyone asked me what I could possibly do with an English degree and said it would be difficult to find a career with a degree like English. I am so incredibly happy to say that I have successfully applied my degree to relevant work and am confident in my next steps after graduation.