Cheri Mazey recently spent her Sunday afternoon at Borders bookstore, managing a raffle for Teachers Appreciation Day. It’s an event that was orchestrated by Project LEARN of Summit County, a non-profit adult literacy organization where Mazey holds the title of community relations assistant.

Mazey, a senior public relations major at Kent State, said whether it’s raffles, research or writing newsletters and press releases that will be seen by about 500 people, the duties of her internship give her a sense of the responsibilities professional PR practitioners face.

"This isn’t just for a grade,” she said. “It’s for real life. You take it a little more seriously.”

Allison Milano, a senior advertising major with a marketing minor, said interning at sister television stations 19 and 43 in Cleveland gave her insight into how advertising works outside the university environment, explaining that she interacted more with clients like glass block companies rather than local bars.

"It’s one thing to work here, targeting people who want to target college students to advertise,” she said, gesturing around the ad department of the campus newspaper, the Daily Kent Stater, where she is the student sales manager. “But working at Channels 19 and 43, you’re targeting … people who want to target every demographic.”

Jenifer Cox, a senior account executive at the Stater, dealt with a more specialized brand of advertiser during her summer internship: auto dealers.

Jenifer Cox, a senior advertising major, interned this summer at the Plain Dealer in the ad sales department. Although she's had experience in newspaper ad departments, she said she's still looking into other career possibilities in her field.