WHDH, Channel 7, is an independent television station licensed to Boston, Massachusetts. From 1948 until today through this station, people within the city of Boston can stay up to date on the news, weather, and sports.
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is the hub of Harvard Kennedy School’s research, teaching, and training in international security and diplomacy, environmental and resource issues, and science and technology policy. The Center has a dual mission: to provide leadership in advancing policy-relevant knowledge and to prepare future generations of leaders for these areas.
While you may not think that Channel 7 or Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs have anything in common, here at Emerson College they do have one incredible student by the name of Brilee Carey in common.
Brilee Carey is a Journalism Major with a triple minor in Political Science, Environmental Science, and Health and Society in the class of 2020. Since last spring, Brilee has interned at a few places, including Channel 7 (Spring 19) and Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (Fall 19).
What are some of your responsibilities at those two internships?
“So at Harvard, I do a lot of media tracking. So what that means is, anyone in our department for the masters programs who write editorials who get quoted in articles I go through and I’m responsible for finding those over 50 different newspapers that we track and then we post the into our websites. We do a lot of website editing, factor content management. And then I also get to interview different fellows that we have at our program and write articles at Harvard magazine.
And then at Channel 7, I was a production assistant, which is a fancy word for teleprompter. But it means I got to be in the control room and kind of learn how a control room administration works.”
What drew you to the Harvard internship, and how did you find the opportunity?
“So the Harvard internship was when I reached out to my advisor, the beginning of the summer and told him I would be looking for internships for the fall and if he had anything that he thought would be interesting to send it my way because I knew that he would have more connections than I have. So he sent me a lot of political and environmental internships. So Harvard is kind of the political place and working at their Science and International Affairs center seemed right up both of my alleys, so I went there.”
What was the culture like at WHDH Channel 7?
“Channel 7 was one of the best learning cultures I think I’ve ever had. You’re low man on the totem pole as an intern, but you’re in the room with the directors and the executive producers who are, other than the anchors, the most important people at a new station and they were also willing to show me what they did. Let me learn exactly what they did and how their jobs worked, which was really helpful when I applied for a job instead of an internship, because I already knew a lot of the things worked in addition to what I learned as a PA.”
What is one experience that you will always remember from your internships?
“I think my favorite is I got to sit in on an interview with Samantha Power’s a few weeks ago, which was really interesting. She’s going on a book tour. So she was doing an interview for her new book and I got to ask her some questions, which was really like a big interview for a tiny person.
I also got to write an article on a nuclear scientist who studies fallout from a nuclear event like if a dirty bomb went off in New York, how would the US recover from it? Just a horrifying interview with incredibly, incredibly fascinating and I get to have that published next week, which I’m very excited about!
Do you have any advice for students interested in this internship or similar opportunities?
“Channel 7, just apply for it, even the internship say they already want you to have two to three internships experiences or a certain number of years completed in your degree. I didn’t meet either of those are requirements when I was applying, but because I was able to interview well and talk with people, because I’ve showed that I was willing to put in the work they hired me anyways.
And for Harvard, really just know what you’re talking about. I went in with minors in environmental science and politics, specifically International. So I know what I was talking about when I went into that was able to talk intelligently about those subjects. But you couldn’t have gone in and fake it till you made it. Like you had to know what you’re talking about. So applying for internships that you don’t know what you’re talking about but also apply the ones that you do so that you had that background already built.”
