INTERNSHIP STORIES

My name is Haven DeAnglis and I am a junior Fibers major with concentrations in Sustainability and Social Practice and Experimental Fashion. During the summer of 2018, I was an intern at MamerSass Reinvented Fashions in Chincoteague, Virginia. The small business focuses on reducing textile waste, and the apparel that is sold in the store is either vintage or upcycled. I learned of the internship experience after the co-owner and designer of the business, Jamey Brittingham, reached out to the Students of Sustainability club to see if we would be interested in hosting them on their college tour. I was able to bring MamerSass to campus in the spring of 2018, and Jamey gave an inspiring artist talk about starting a small, sustainable business. They also brought along the mobile shop, so students could see the upcycled clothing creations. Before Jamey and her partner Derek came to MICA, I did research on the company and learned that they offered internships. I e...

My name is Morgan Smith, and I am a senior Graphic Design major. My previous professor,  Hieu Tran, was an intern and designer at Studio Rodrigo in 2017. Knowing that I had taken on  UI/UX in the past year, he mentioned that they were looking for design interns. Studio Rodrigo is  primarily a product design studio, and I figured this would be a great way for me to test the  UI/UX skills I’ve gathered. Hieu thankfully passed along my resume, and I even had the chance  to interview with their team at the 2018 Career Fair. After going through this process and  sending up a follow up email, I got to interview with other members of the team to review my  work and goals as a designer. Later, I was accepted as an intern in late May of this year.  Studio Rodrigo is a design studio located in New York that works in various fields of design  including: product design, brand elements, and more. Studio Rodrigo does focus more on  product des...

During the Summer of 2018, I was a graphic design intern for Paperwhite Studio , a design and  branding company in Brooklyn, New York. As a Graphic Design MFA student at MICA, I have a  strong interest in identity design and packaging, especially in the food industry. Thus, while  searching for an internship for the summer, I specifically looked for studios that have done  projects in this food-GD area. Paperwhite is prestigious in the industry of restaurant/cafe branding and food packaging, and  also famous for helping small restaurants explode in popularity thanks to a strong conceptual  and carefully crafted design that connected with their audience. Jackʼs Wife Freda, by CHLOE,  and The Sosta were three signature cases designed by Paperwhite. T o prepare for this experience, I have spoken personally with Laureen Moyal, the co-founder of  Paperwhite Studio, about the job, and I also have contacted to one past intern and one current  i...

I had an amazing summer at Gretel , a design studio in New York City. As I prepare for a  career in graphic design, I am dedicated to gaining practical experience to complement  my academics. I had always hoped to immerse myself in a studio culture and  collaborate with creative people from different disciplines. After the spring break, I  found Gretel on imageofthestudio.com and looked through the works on their website.  I loved the use of bold typography in their visual designs and their creative motion  works. I emailed them immediately and inquired about summer internship opportunity. The production coordinator emailed back within one week and asked me for an  interview. I decided to visit their studio in NYC and meet them in person. I took the train  on a Friday morning and made it to Union Square, where Gretel located. I met the  coordinator and one of their designers, introduced some of my works on my portfolio  website, and ...

I’m Juliette Wang, a rising senior Graphic Design student. For 2018’s summer, I was a Design Intern for Studio Rodrigo , a product design agency based in New York. They produce various work from products, marketing websites to branding; clients include Adobe, This American Life, Serial Podcast, Comcast, ABC News, xfinity, and more. Studio Rodrigo is most focused in helping companies identity and evaluate product opportunities, developing strategies, and designing and bringing new products and services to market. I became aware of Studio Rodrigo last summer so this summer I decided to apply for the internship. Hieu Tran, my professor and good friend, interned and worked at Studio Rodrigo last summer so he mentioned me to Rodrigo as they were looking for interns. I also met them in person at MICA Career Fair and after, I sent a carefully composed ‘cover letter’ email to Rodrigo with my resume and portfolio website. After a couple of days, I got an email back from the Creative Direc...

My name is Eun Young (Esther) Ko, an upcoming Senior majoring in Architecture  Design in Maryland Institute College of Arts. During the summer of 2018, I  worked as intern for TimHaahs located in Pennsylvania, USA. TimHaahs is a  multi-disciplined engineering and architectural design firm that provides planning  design services to create parking and mixed used facilities. The company specializes  in developing unique and effective parking strategies to create attractive, vibrant and  sustainable communities. As a student who is wishing to have as much experience in different fields in  architecture, I started looking for architectural firms specializing in something totally  different than the companies I had worked for before. Fortunately, I was able to watch  a documentary about TimHaahs that mainly designed parking structure that I never  thought of. For this reason, I decided to apply for TimHaahs internship during  summer ...

My name is ReAnn Orr and I am a Senior Film & Video major. During the summer of  2018, I did an internship with Mad Queen Productions . Mad Queen Productions is a  production studio based in Baltimore, owned and created by Madeline Becker. I found  out about this internship through MICA Career Development internship site. What  appealed to me was that the internship position was listed as Video Archivist. Appropriating archival footage is a tool I have used frequently in my work and know how  to execute well. After setting up an interview with Madeline, I got the the job. Madeline  hired me as Video Archivist for a documentary she was making about painting professor  at MICA, Raoul Middleman. My job consisted of finding archival imagery and video of  topics Raoul spoke about in his recorded interview with Madeline. Some examples of  these videos and images included family photos of Raoul, photos of historic Baltimore in  the 20th c...

My name is Tanvi Sharma and I am a rising Junior Painting and Humanistic Studies Major.  During the summer of 2018, I was an intern with the artist Matt Bollinger , based in Holmes,  New York. I had been interested in Matt’s process of combining digital and analog media and  creating compelling narratives since a couple of years. During the spring semester I had been  working on creating similar work of my own and decided to shoot Matt an email. He turned  out to be a friend of my professor, Sangram Majumdar and he went on to recommend me to  Matt. Matt agreed to have me work with him for the summer, which turned out to be the  most enriching experience. The experience included long conversations with Matt about his practice, the art world and  what he wants to do in the future. I think the most valuable thing I have gained from this  experience is getting to intimately know a working artist I strongly look up to. During the d...

My name is Danny Varillas and I am a senior Graphic Design major. This summer had the  privilege of being a design intern at The Working Assembly in New York, NY. I first heard about  The Working Assembly during my junior year in flexible design studio. This course was  structured around workshops with various professional designers and studios around the  country, and The Working Assembly was one of those studios. A MICA alumni who is currently  working at The Working Assembly encouraged me to apply for the summer internship position. I  had been interested in their work and decided to give it a shot. I sent a brief email with my  resume and portfolio link. They quickly contacted to schedule an interview. Within a week I had  received a email of acceptance. The Working Assembly is multidisciplinary design studio that primarily focuses on branding. The  studio is primarily women employed and led. This is one of the things that sets it apar...

It all started when I was watching several films on a raining day. These films ranged from  documentary to scripted narratives. As I would scroll down at the end of the film to see the  credits, I would notice one similar logo. The logo was “ Tribeca Film Institute ”, or “Tribeca Film  Festival”. My interest grew as I started to research them. I was fascinated by their goals and  philosophy of finding independent filmmakers and producing their work so that larger audiences  can see the films.  A couple of months went by and I was still searching for an internship. Until one day I  was talking to my brothers friend who is a filmmaker himself, and I told him my interest in TFI.  He smiled and said that he worked with the head director of TFI on a film. Her name is Amy  Hobby. He gave me her contact information and I drafted a email to her. She was happy to see  my interest so she connected me to Olivia Creamer who is in charg...

My name is Lufei Xiao and I’m a Senior Film & Video major. I found this internship from my  friend who own a small production company in my hometown, he worked with Snowball Pictures   for a short film project before, so he introduced me to them. Snowball Pictures is a video production company that produce video works including student  shorts, commercials and some website films, they are expert in cinematography particularly.  My direct supervisor is Qingqing Liu who is the founder of Snowball Pictures, but when I got  here he has to go to Shanghai for another project so I was assisting another director. I was involved in several project, two commercials and one student short. I worked as director  assistant I do whatever the director told me to do, included writing script, project docking, gaffer  on set, etc. I'm most proud of my ability to teamwork with others.  I learned the most when things don’t go well. I ...

I was recommended for the position at Ziger/Snead by my TA from a class I took on the fall semester of my sophomore year. He was graduating and was asked to find someone to take his place so he recommended me for it. I secured it by working on creating a portfolio and a resume that showed my potential and by interviewing with the partners and the studio manager at Ziger/Snead. Ziger/ Snead is an architecture firm that is based in Baltimore. They are very much committed to working specifically in the area of Baltimore and it’s surroundings . They work in a variety of residential, institutional and historic projects. The team is composed of 18 people. They create design that is tailored to the client and it is never a repetitive or robotic design process. Every project is different. In my internship my direct supervisor is Nicole Lamont and she is the studio manager. She manages everything in the office and maintains everything flowing smoothly.  I had som...