Experience Providers FAQs

Provided below are the details on how to post internship or job opportunities on our website.

Email the following information to comms_internship@byu.edu:

• Job Title
• Job Description
• Job Qualifications
• Job Type: Select all that apply: FT/PT, Internship, Entry-level, Mid-career, etc.
• Job Category: Select all that apply: Advertising, Journalism, Public Relations, General Communications, Digital Media
• Wage/Salary
• Application Process
• Application Deadline
• Start Date
• Company Description
• Contact name, email and phone
• City and State for location of experience

Once we receive your information, your posting will be posted on our website. If you submit during our normal business hours (9a-4p, M-F) your posting will be approved and appear on the site by the end of business that day. If you submit after hours your posting will appear first thing in the morning or the following Monday. If you’d like to make any edits to your posting feel free to reach out to us and we can make any edits you’d like.

Opportunities posted on the site are publicized on our Facebook and Twitter feed. In addition to social media publicity, all new postings from the previous week will be emailed directly to the students in our newsletter on Fridays. The newsletter contains the most recent postings from the website and any other opportunities we were made aware of via email.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions: (801) 422-5836 or comms_internship@byu.edu.

As you may already know, the Communications Department requires that each student register for an academic internship experience prior to graduation (COMMS 496R). In order to fulfill this requirement the experience must meet certain criteria:

• Experience must provide significant, entry-level assignments within the student’s communications emphasis (Advertising, Journalism or Public Relations).
• Experience must provide direct supervision by a professional in that same field.
  
  • An updated resume of the internship supervisor should be sent to nicole_norris@byu.edu prior to credit approval
• Experience must provide a minimum of 70 hours (for the 1-credit course) or 280 hours (for the 4-credit course) of work at the internship with at least 15 hrs/wk.
  
  • Most students do a 20 or 40 hr/wk internship for 14 or 7 weeks, respectively
• The student must not work at the same organization of a family member or in-law (see Department Anti-Nepotism Policy).

Please be aware that only ONE internship needs to count towards graduation for a student. We encourage students to complete as many internships as possible, even if they wont count for credit. If you’d like to verify that your experience will count for credit prior to offering it to a student, feel free to email Nicole Norris (nicole_norris@byu.edu) with the following: (1) a job description, (2) supervisor’s resume, and (3) what emphasis you’d like it to count for. A response will be given within 48 hours.

BYU’s position (across the university) as stated in our most recent accreditation application is and will remain that we DO NOT grant academic credit for WORK EXPERIENCE. We are not a technical school. Academic credit is granted for a curricular experience. For an internship to qualify as a curricular experience it must be inextricably tied to the content of classes in a student’s major. Further, it must be supervised by a faculty member who communicates regularly with students to advise and teach them as they perform the duties of an internship. And it must be supervised by a full-time professional in the discipline–someone the faculty recognizes as able to further reinforce and teach the concepts, theories, principles and practices taught in courses in the major.

Students complete reports throughout the internship to which a faculty member responds with advice and counsel on how to do the job. They have several assignments that require them to reflect on the experience and tie it back to their major coursework. They have required readings and write a paper applying what they are reading to the work they are doing. These are only a few of the curricular requirements that are designed to create a truly academic experience for the student. In order to do this, we carefully select the workplaces and the supervisors who can partner with our faculty in providing this curricular experience.

So the question isn’t whether this might be a good experience for students. Students should take advantage of several such experiences before they graduate, only ONE of which is the official internship for credit. An experience that lacks an approved supervisor and significant/related assignments does not qualify as the curricular experience for which we grant credit.

If a student wishes to use a job opportunity as his or her internship course, the experience must meet the same requirements as a traditional internship.

Further questions should be directed to Nicole Norris, Internship and Career Services Coordinator.

• If you submit before noon on Friday, your posting will go out that same afternoon in our weekly newsletter.
• If your opportunity is not relevant to our students, it will not be approved on our website. Please keep all postings communications related. If you are looking to recruit students from other disciplines, feel free to contact the internship coordinator from that department. A comprehensive list of coordinators can be found HERE (under the Experience Providers tab, click on “Department Internship Coordinator List”).
• Students in the communications department are required to complete a four-credit internship prior to graduation, if your internship doesn’t meet the requirements for academic credit, you are less likely to get a junior/senior to do an internship with you.
• BYU operates on a four-term/semester schedule. To be aware of when classes start/end each semester you can refer to the academic calendar.
• Please know that we cannot control whether or not a student accepts an offer with your company. Some students will turn down opportunities simply because they will not count for the credit required for graduation. If you have questions about this, please read the information in the above sections about academic credit or contact the internship office.

Yes! For experience providers that are (or will be) in the Provo area, we’d love to have you visit. We can arrange a meeting time to have you pitch internship opportunities to our students, or have you guest lecture in a class. We also have interview rooms available on campus if you’d like to host interviews here. We’re happy to help in any way we can. Feel free to reach out to our office to arrange any type of guest visit.

Office Hours: M-F, 9:00am – 4:00pm / comms_internship@byu.edu / (801) 422-5836 / 280 BRMB

We have two labs in the department that are student-run, professionally mentored agencies that help bridge the gap between students’ educational experience and the working world. If you’d like to hire one of the labs for a project, you can call at (801) 422-4426.

Y-Digital: Y-Digital is an on-campus agency that provides PR services to real-world clients while providing students with valuable experience. Y-Digital is capable of providing research services, strategic campaign planning, as well as implementation of specific projects.

Lab Manager: Adam Durfee

BYU AdLab: The AdLab is an on-campus agency that works with real-world clients to meet a wide range of advertising objectives. The AdLab works on projects from consumer research to campaign development to campaign production, and everything in between. The AdLab can work on a project as short as 24 hours and as long as 12 months.

Lab Manager: Pat Doyle

Brigham Young University has created the Internship Master Agreement because BYU carries liability insurance on each of our internship students. The insurance carrier requires Brigham Young University to have a written agreement in place to verify that the intern is covered under the plan. The insurance policy indemnifies the internship provider, Brigham Young University, and the student from any potential damages. If we do not have the agreement in place, the insurance carrier is likely to deny any claim filed. We hope that you will appreciate that this insurance coverage is a benefit to the internship provider and Brigham Young University.

Brigham Young University is often asked why many other schools do not require such an agreement. The reason is that many schools rely on some form of governmental immunity and so they do not carry similar liability insurance. Brigham Young University is a private institution and we believe it is prudent to carry insurance in order to protect ourselves and our interns. Brigham Young University has worked out agreements with many high level placements and government agencies using the Internship Master Agreement.

Click on the link at the bottom of this page labeled “Master Agreement” and fill out the form. Email it to comms_internship@byu.edu when you have completed it. We will forward it to the university internship office and let you know when it has been approved.