High School Students Gain Real-World Experience During the Summer Internship Program

When you put the Syracuse City School District (SCSD), Syracuse University and CNY Works together, one word comes to mind: future.

A partnership between the three has sparked learning and opportunity across the five city high schools. Through the Syracuse University Summer Internship program, rising seniors apply for internships and are selected based on the excellence they demonstrate in their chosen career and technical education program.

The students are paid through CNY Works to spend six weeks at various Syracuse University locations. The program is now in its third year, and this class of interns included three digital multimedia students from the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central (ITC) who were selected to intern in radio, marketing and media relations.

Cultivating Skills

At WAER Radio, Anthony Davis cultivated his skill for sports writing. Given the opportunity to cover The Basketball Tournament Syracuse Regional as a WAER representative, Davis was thrilled to see familiar faces on the court again. “As a kid I loved watching Syracuse,” Davis says. “Seeing them compete at one of the higher levels of basketball and then interviewing them after the game was a really great experience. I’m glad that WAER gave me the opportunity to represent them at such a big tournament.” Davis is a basketball announcer for the ITC Varsity Basketball team and is pursuing a career in sportscasting.

At the Nancy Cantor Warehouse, Kaleb St. Louis learned about the importance of photography and videography in the world of marketing. “I’m doing the work at school. But now that I’ve interned with the media marketing team, I know why I’m doing it and why it has its own purpose in the field,” says the rising senior. St. Louis is a football announcer for the ITC varsity football team and is pursuing a career in sportscasting and announcing. 

Working With Media Relations

The final ITC media intern is actually me! As an intern with the Syracuse University Media Relations team, I’ve learned how photography can be utilized to cater to a specific audience or story. After covering Pete’s Giving Garden and the South Campus food pantry, I saw the beauty of a photo and a story fitting perfectly in both meaning and importance. The biggest takeaway for me was the idea that a story can be read from any piece of paper or screen but can only be truly visualized by a photo.

An internship is nothing without its interns. The students who participated in the Syracuse University Summer Internship Program took advantage of their opportunity and made it into the experience of a lifetime. Whether a student is interested in public relations, photography or forensic science, there is a place for them in this program.

Story written by Angelina Grevi, Syracuse City School District Communications Intern