Lola Simmons is a junior public relations major at the University of Central Arkansas, and they must be teaching her well: Her pitch for the internship program at Little Rock marketing agency CJRW was impassioned, informative and incisive.
She reeled off a half-dozen reasons she loved the six-week summer program, which ended this month, before hitting the biggest kick.
“We’re treated as professionals, we actually get hands-on experience working with clients,” Simmons said last month. “One of the greatest things is that it’s a paid internship, something that’s increasingly unusual.”
“My last internship was unpaid, so this is quite different. This experience confirmed that this is really what I want to do after I graduate.”
Simmons and six other collegians or recent graduates worked for the ad agency this summer, gaining expertise in all specialties at the firm and working on real client projects.
“There are six to eight interns each year, and there’s no such thing as a typical day,” Simmons said. One week she was helping with photo shoots around the state; the next, she was working with clients in CJRW’s Main Street offices.
“Working with clients and real professionals confirmed my high expectations,” Simmons said. “Getting hands-on experience is the best experience.”
LeAnne Roberson, a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, spent much of her internship in CJRW’s creative department, and called it her first real professional experience. “It’s been nice to collaborate with professionals who know what they’re doing and can teach me their techniques, sort of tricks of the trade.”
Robert Lock, a journalism major at the University of Houston, seconded that thought, calling the internship his introduction to corporate reality. “Just working for one of the top agencies in the state of Arkansas has been amazing,” he said.
The agency’s rapid pace also appealed to Sophie Scaccia of Springdale, a marketing major at UCA. “Seeing the work firsthand is absolutely amazing,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much, and not only about marketing and social media, but also about all the different departments here. That’s really cool about this internship, that you’re not placed in just one department. In a real agency setting, you’re going to be able to do it all.”
Madi Woziwodzki of Little Rock, a marketing and PR major at the University of Alabama, has enjoyed working on accounts involving tourism, including Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs. Jessica Wass, a Little Rock native and rising senior in design at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said she was delighted to learn that making her way in the workaday world did not require surrendering her individuality. “I don’t have to give up who I am as a person, even in a corporate job, and I can work together well with people and still express my personality.”
The seventh intern, Dani Carney, a video production intern from Hendrix College in Conway, was out on assignment during the group interview Simmons arranged.
Most applicants to the CJRW program study journalism, marketing, advertising, PR, business, writing, communications and design, and one of the perks is “raiding the occasional ice cream truck,” CJRW says in advertising the positions.
The agency’s first intern in the early 1960s, Ron Robinson, eventually became its chairman and CEO. Robinson, who died in 2018, is the man who put the “R” in CJRW.
Sign up for Daily E-news
