Update on the intern I have this semester...
When she was âbrought onâ as my intern, I made it very clear that her work was going to be VAWA focused (dating and domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault and rape), as it specifically applies to colleges and universities.  She would be writing a post for our officeâs blog twice a month on something pertaining to those topics.
A post about Dance Moms, delivered at the end of January.  (This was her âsample writing piece,â so Iâll give her half a pass on it not being related to the VAWA stuff.)
A post about the negative stereotypes of African-American Women on Television, in mid-February. Â (Great topic, but not what she was asked to write about - we did still publish it.)
A post on the Wage Gap in the US, in mid-March. (It was Womenâs History Month, she was super excited about an article she found, so I went with it.)
An idea to write about Disney Princesses, which she decided not to do after I asked her to find a way to relate the topic back to gendered-violence and college campuses, especially since it was, by now, Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
A post about how college campuses deal with reports of sexual assault, which I had to heavily edit because she was misquoting things left and right and including incredibly false numbers, delivered about a week ago.
None of these were given to me without copious spelling, punctuation, and syntax errors. Â I always had to edit it and send it back to her to make the changes. Â
And now she is asking me for suggestions for her next post topic. Â
Itâs finals week. Â I think weâre done.
(All this to say, lesson learned.  Donât just blindly accept someone as an intern because your boss said she was a âgood student.â  Donât just accept that you need an intern because your boss thinks that you need one.  (Especially when that boss is about to leave for a new job.)  Set up firm guidelines that state the type of topics they will write about and ensure that the intern knows what that means, or at least has a base level understanding.  Create a calendar that details when rough drafts need to be submitted and when final edits are due.  And be clear that it is THEIR job to come up with the topics, since THEY are the social media intern.  This is not the place for hand-holding.)
