Internships are a huge part of the Anderson University student experience.
Summer is a time for students to move out of the classroom and practice what they’ve learned in a professional setting. These media communication majors represent a variety of internship experiences.
Morgan Lane
Morgan Lane, a student in the Communication Department of the College of Arts and Sciences at Anderson University, is a social media intern at Crawford, a Greenville-based full service marketing and branding agency.
Lane, a rising senior studying digital communications, works closely with the Crawford team managing social media accounts, planning content and developing strategies for a broad variety of clients. At Anderson University, Lane serves as President of the university’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter and is the social media manager for the campus recreation and fitness department.
When asked how she became interested in communications, Lane said it wasn’t her choice at first.
“I wanted to do nursing for a long time. I got into my first nursing class and knew it was not for me,” she said. “I got into communications after I realized that all my hobbies are communications related and I could actually make a career out of it. I always loved making videos and editing videos—I would do that for fun in high school. I would make social media pages for different clubs and groups I was involved with and I think whenever I got to college I realized I can do this thing that I love and have it be my job.”
Lane loves the nature of her work for Crawford; no two days are the same. She enjoys being able to sit in on meetings and working with a variety of clients that run the gamut from healthcare to tourism—even churches. She especially appreciates the valuable mentorship her internship supervisor provides.
During this internship, Lane’s fascination with the data side of social media has grown.
“It’s been very interesting to be able to see how a social media strategy is developed and be able to implement that and just be able to actually have hard data and numbers that inform decisions that explain why you do what you do in social media strategy.”
Lane says studying digital communications at Anderson University has helped her step right into the internship.
“I am so glad I went to AU. Without it, I would have had such a different trajectory. I think I have been so blessed to have amazing professors, like professor (Robert) Reeves and professor (Bobby) Rettew, who are just so passionate, have such knowledge and being able to work with them.”
Cade Tessmann
Cade Tessmann, a public relations major and rising senior in the Communication Department of the College of Arts and Sciences at Anderson University, has been doing a marketing and public relations internship for the city of Anderson. A self-described people person, he enjoys his many interactions, making connections and organizing events.
“I really like to be able to meet new people and build my repertoire of contacts and help them, however they need me,” Tessmann said.
Tessmann feels his education at Anderson University has helped him go into his internship well-prepared.
“When I do something in my job, it’s like ‘now that I think about it, we learned something similar in class,’” he said. “In my public relations classes, we learned how we should use public relations and how it will affect the people, then I do something in my internship and it all sort of plays back into my studies.”
Anderson University has offered Tessmann many different avenues to expand himself. For example, being involved in PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) and student government association (SGA) have been beneficial.
“I’m on the executive board (of SGA); that helped me get a job with the city,” Tessmann said. “AU offers a lot of different opportunities that, as long as you’re willing to utilize them, they can help you in all aspects of your life.”
Tessmann has been involved with the Anderson Area Reconciliation and Remembrance initiative, creating a website and being involved in the planning for a Juneteenth event. His job has variety. One day he might be photographing and documenting various lots around Anderson or spending time with youngsters at the Westside Community Center.
“Social media wise, I spent time with the city of Anderson and the police department’s social media people and figured out the analytics they use, how they monitor that, what posts are allowed or not, and how often they post. There’s a lot to learn,” Tessmann said. “The more I learn about Anderson, the better it helps me with my job and I can better relate to the people in the city.”
Tessmann says his internship is extending into the new academic year. He hopes to work in municipal government—possibly in Anderson—when he graduates.
Ellie Yandle
A rising senior from Charlotte, North Carolina, Ellie Yandle pursued her personal interest in Christian standup comedy to land a unique internship.
Yandle, who excelled in public speaking competitions in high school, initially thought of majoring in public relations. During her first semester at Anderson University, she became more interested in digital media.
“I’m still unsure of what exactly I want to do with that, but I know that I really want to get into entertainment. I know it takes a lot of different forms, but I think clean entertainment is really viable,” said Yandle, who recently started listening more to podcasts from Christian comedians.
Though she thought it would be a longshot, Yandle emailed some of her favorite comedians, offering to help them with their social media. She finally heard back from the oldest daughter of comedian John Branyan, who works with her father. (Branyan’s daughters, Amanda McKinny and Tabitha Farcus, both happen to be media communication graduates from a different institution.)
“She reached out and said ‘you know, we’ve never had an intern before, but that sounds cool. We’ll give it a try.’ I remember thinking this can’t be real and this is really happening,” Yandle said.
Yandle was put in charge of Branyan’s Instagram account, which had gotten less attention than Branyan’s other social media platforms. She has been focusing on Instagram Reels while putting her video editing skills to work, posting video clips from his standup routines and podcasts—also promoting upcoming events.
“He has a weekly live show with a couple of other comics. I’ll post little bits of that and sometimes I’ll do my own little illustrations or doodles to kind of liven up the video itself,” Yandle said. “One of my main goals was just to represent what he’s doing well… I would love for his brand to look uniform across all platforms and still active.”
These days Branyan does less standup comedy and more speaking and preaching engagements, but there’s a lot of video content Yandle wants to introduce to a new audience following him on Instagram.
Most helpful for Yandle has been her class in Photoshop and InDesign in the Communication Department of the College of Arts and Science. Yandle’s internship is still going on, and she finds time to do work on her own comedy material.
Grace Matthews
A rising senior from Hartsville, South Carolina, Grace Matthews loves producing fast-paced, high energy video content. The daughter of a journalist, she has been fascinated with the media from a young age.
Matthews, a digital marketing major with a minor in marketing, has been spending her summer as a videographer for summer camps in the mountains of northern Greenville County. For her internship with Look Up Lodge, Matthews daily follows campers, capturing their activity.
“I partner with our photographer. We both do our content together and help each other out,” Matthews said.
Look Up Lodge has 14 camps throughout the summer. They offer kids camps and teen camps.
“I go around and take videos of kids and teens doing activities throughout the week, such as chapel, group recreation and pretty much anything fun that they’re doing. I use all of that and make the weekly recap video that they watch on their departure day,” Matthews said.
She has also done videos of skits and a staff intro video that gets played at the beginning of each camp. Matthews enjoys the challenge of capturing camp moments with her DSLR (camera) and uses a GoPro camera for action shots at Look Up Lodge’s water slide, zip line or swings.
“I enjoy interacting with the children, hanging out with them and getting to know them, and also getting to know our summer staff and getting to capture what it looks like with their lives into a video so other people can see and maybe want to come to camp,” Matthews said.
Matthews, who has loved sports all her life, hopes to work in the sports media as a videographer.
“I would like to do hype videos for a sports team, maybe at a university level or high school level—just getting to capture the action,” she said.
Anderson University Department of Communication
The Anderson University Department of Communication prepares students to handle the lightning-quick arena of transmitting ideas via words, videos and more and offers a concentration in Digital Media or Public Relations. Learn more about the Department of Communication online.