Every Monday we will we be profiling one of our HC MMM staffers as they detail their experience at a media internship. This is in the hopes that current and future MMC students will learn from their experiences and be guided into landing and maintaining an internship in NYC. This week we are featuring Brooke Materia, one of our writers, and her internship at The Dr. Oz Show.
In August I began interning at The Dr. Oz Show, and I’ve loved every minute of it. I applied, interviewed, and was offered the position back in April and May, so spending the summer relaxing and watching while all of my friends struggled to find internships was pretty nice. I found the internship and applied on my own, but it definitely didn’t hurt that I knew a Marymount alum that had been interning that semester.
As a production intern, each day you’re assigned a different department to work with. It’s really cool because you get to learn about all the different aspects of putting together a daytime talk show. We work with the producing, booking, field, audience, and studio teams. Some days we’re helping seat the audience, some days we’re helping producers with research, and some days we even get to rehearse the show with Dr. Oz!
I’m only a month in but I’ve already had so many cool experiences! My favorite was on my second day, while I was helping the producing team with research. I found a woman’s blog (by searching on Twitter!) and the next week they had her on the show. It was really cool to see someone on the show that I found myself. It really made me feel like part of the team and not just a random, unimportant intern.
Everyone at Dr. Oz is really nice. Many of them used to be interns themselves, and they all go out of their way to make sure we don’t have any problems and are comfortable. My Marymount alum friend Rosie, who I mentioned earlier, was hired on for this season, so it’s even better knowing that if I ever need help with anything I can always swing by her desk.
Some parts of the internship are pretty challenging. I’ve often had to force myself to take initiative and find something to do during days we aren’t taping and the office is slow. Our call time during filming is 7am, so I had to adjust to that as well. I’m going to have to wake up at 5am on my 21st birthday and I’m actually okay with that!
It’s only been a month, but I absolutely love my internship. I was nervous at first because I’ve wanted to get into television for years and I was worried it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. But even during the bad days (like when I had sixteen women over the age of 45 yelling at me because they wanted to meet Dr. Oz or when I was covering the reception desk and accidentally dropped a call from a Sony executive), I’m still completely in love with television and I’m thrilled that I get to work in it.