NASW student members looking for great science writing internships or one-on-one networking conversation with editors at news and science organizations are invited to register for the 2024 NASW Virtual Internship Fair. The event will be held online, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024.
NASW Virtual Internship Fair details
NASW student members are invited to meet with editors from top magazines, research institutes, national labs and other science communication outlets during a speed-dating style internship fair and editor meet & greet. Potential recruiters include MIT Technology Review, Nature, Science, Science News, Scientific American, American Geophysical Union, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Marine Biological Laboratory, and Yale Medicine.
- Signups: Students must pre-register. Only pre-registered students will be able to participate. Pre-register by Monday, February 5, at 11:59 PM ET (Sign up instructions for recruiters are below)
- Date: Monday, Feb. 12, 2024 (Again, students must pre-register by Monday, February 5, 11:59 PM ET, in order to qualify)
- Time: 1:00 - 5:00 PM ET. All participating students must be logged in at or before 1:00 PM. Those who arrive after this time may lose out on their entire slate of interviews.
- Place: Zoom virtual meeting platform; Access details will be sent to all participants via email.
The event format is a fast-paced, round-robin style of interviews, using Zoom breakout rooms. In each 5-minute interview round, each student participant meets with one recruiting organization. When the clock ends, students rotate to a new breakout room for their next interview round, or take a break until their next appointment. Students will have a chance to indicate their preferred organizations after registration, and will be given their individual interview schedule and appointed rounds ahead of the event.
Recruiters may identify prospective interns at the fair, but internships are generally not offered on the spot. Because of time constraints, students might not be able to meet with all recruiters they selected during registration.
Instructions for Students:
- Attendance at the NASW Virtual Internship Fair is limited to current students 18 years of age and older, enrolled in any community college, bachelors, masters, or other graduate degree or certificate program.
- To be eligible to participate in the fair, students must pre-register for the fair AND be a current NASW Student Member. Not a member? Submit a membership application by Feb. 5, 2024; i.e. your complete, paid applications for NASW membership at the Student Membership level must be received by February 5. Visit nasw.org/join for more information. (Note: Signing up to view free guest content on nasw.org is not the same as joining NASW. Please double-check your membership status before the day of the event.)
- You must pre-register for the fair by Feb. 5, 2024. Registered participants will receive additional information about the format of the event and platform access instructions via email. A reminder that you must log into the fair at or before 1:00 PM Eastern on Monday, Feb. 12, to be eligible to participate.
- Please come prepared: Do some background reading on the publications with which you wish to meet and look at their social media feeds, think about how you will encapsulate your goals and experience, think ahead about questions you want to ask, and dress professionally, as you would for a job interview.
- Keep in mind that the fair is intended to be an opportunity for NASW student members to learn about various organizations’ offerings and introduce themselves to editors to make a quick first impression. You each will have just five minutes with each editor.
Instructions for Recruiters:
- If your organization has a paid internship for which you are seeking excellent candidates — or even if you don't have an internship offering, but would like to meet with students — please contact NASW Internship Fair program coordinator Chia-Yi Hou at education@nasw.org to reserve your place. Recruiters do not need to be NASW members.
- On the day of the event, Feb. 12, please log on 15 minutes before the scheduled start time, so any technical issues can be sorted out before the event. Come prepared to describe available opportunities within your organization, and remuneration.
- Consider having two people work the fair so they can allow each other to take a break, while still accommodating all the students seeking internships or wishing to speak with editors. NASW volunteers will be on hand to help recruiters and students as much as possible.
See you in February!
Questions? Contact NASW Education Committee Co-Chair Ashley Yeager and Internship Fair Coordinator Chia-Yi Hou at education@nasw.org. Thank you to NASW member volunteers Czerne Reid, Ashley Yeager, Chia-Yi Hou, Berly McCoy, and many others who spearhead our student programming year after year. And tag #SciWriStudent in your social media posts to join the conversation.
Founded in 1934 with a mission to fight for the free flow of science news, NASW is an organization of ~ 2,800 professional journalists, authors, editors, producers, public information officers, students and people who write and produce material intended to inform the public about science, health, engineering, and technology. To learn more, visit www.nasw.org and follow NASW on LinkedIn.
