The "Virtual Intern"

In Chapter 12 of Communication and Cyberspace, the idea of students participating in a Virtual Organization surfaces. It states that "Communication students who get the chance to intern in organizations today generally report dissatisfaction with the tasks they are assigned. Dreams of creative fulfillment tend to be misplaced among the filing, telephone duty, and fact checking that typically constitute the intern's job description. Often the experience of a corporate environment and the change to "network" provide more valuable experiences for the student that the substance of the assigned tasks" (p. 204). Being an intern myself, this is very close to my personal work experience. 

I work as a sales/public relations intern for the fashion designer, Derek Lam, and my background in communication enables me to easily perform some of my given tasks. Some of these tasks include tracking samples of clothing, where we scan a barcode of the sample and through a virtual computer program it shows exactly where that sample is, whether it be somewhere in the United States or even Milan or Japan. I have been given the chance to "network" while attending events held at different department stores and also put in my personal creative input by styling mannequins. Other tasks include designing templates of picture of the runway shows and doing competitive analysis reports by researching department store websites to compare prices of other designers. I would consider myself a "virtual intern" because of my thorough use of the web and computer during my daily work activities.