Washington Square News
MONDAY, APRIL 27, 2020
CULTURE@NYUNEWS.COM
5
CULTURE
Edited by BELLA GIL
The Uncertain Future of Summer Internships By ADDISON ALOIAN Deputy Culture Editor In the midst of COVID-19 and the uncertainties it has thrust upon the world, one of the biggest questions for students are the fate of their summer internships. Large media companies such as Buzzfeed, Sony and NPR, as well as local dentists’ offices, schools and law firms, have cancelled their summer internship programs. Tandon sophomore Jenny Kam had her current job working for a neurologist and summer internship with a dentist on the Upper East Side completely cancelled in anticipation that the stayat-home orders issued nationwide will extend into the summer months. “Unfortunately, due to the fact a lot of pre-health internships are hand-on [sic] and more about research, for now, everything is cancelled,” she said to WSN in an email. “If the summer is still under strict stay-at-home restrictions, my plan is to just stay home and really focus on studying for my DAT exam I plan to take my junior spring semester.” Similarly, CAS sophomore Aimee Hou had a job in the city at the Gibney, Anthony and Flaherty law firm, but it’s also been temporarily cancelled due to the virus. “I do research for the law firm,” she said. “This would be in-person work so I am not able to do any remote work. I was told we would go back to work once the pandemic is over or if things get better.” Rather than cancelling their pro-
grams completely, some summer internships have announced that they will be continuing through a remote format. “I’m interning as a summer teaching fellow at Uncommon Schools, a charter school system in Brooklyn,” CAS junior Caroline Stanley said. The program went remote as of March 30, and Stanley expressed that it should be interesting, given the nature of the work. “The first part of the program was going to be shadowing a teacher in their classroom, and the second part would be teaching our own classroom of summer school kids,” she said. “They haven’t really explained how things will change much at all and I’m pretty concerned about the fact that we will be missing out on so many aspects of teaching technique by being online.” Steinhardt junior Dan Vostinar is also able to continue her work for Sony Music and Electric Lady Studios remotely, but hopes to return to working in-person soon, as the music industry thrives in a collaborative environment. “Working remotely with the tools we have, like communicating over Zoom, is very effective and keeps our spirits up,” she said. However, a majority of artists thrive mentally and financially on live performances, which have stopped for the time being, affecting labels and studios immensely. “One of the most difficult things to grasp is that no one has any answers, so yes, thinking about the future is a little scary,” Vostinar said. “But I know that as soon as we can resume in per-
JAKE CAPRIOTTI | WSN
The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon is a highly sought after internship by NYU students. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping the way students are looking for summer internships.
son again and attend live shows, we’re going to come back even stronger and enjoy it the most!” For students looking to apply to medical school, stress is high because of the fact that graduate admissions often look for applicants with more work hours. “This situation definitely sucks and it does hold up a lot of students in the pre-health track when it comes to getting in shadowing hours, research hours and internship hours,” Kam said. “Al-
though we don’t know how long this situation will last, I do have to get more internship opportunities as well as finding people to shadow since many dental schools require at least 100 hours.” While most students are scrambling after their internship plans went awry, the most stressed students seem to be juniors entering their final year. “I graduate in December, which is already a difficult time to get hired as a teacher, so the added burden of the terrible economy makes me concerned
about job prospects,” said Stanley. Although this pause isn’t ideal, some students remain hopeful about the future. “I definitely do miss doing my job because I get to work with amazing people,” Hou said. “I am not too worried about it affecting my future but I do hope that I can go back to doing what I love soon enough!” Email Addison Aloian at aaloian@nyunews.com.
Online Classes Find Difficulties in Engagement By IVY ZHU Contributing Writer
JAKE CAPRIOTTI | WSN
A student prepares for another week of online classes. As Zoom has become the new platform for online classes, students continue to struggle with the lack of a classroom environment.
Online education at home might be effective when it comes to catching up on sleep and spending time with family. When it comes to learning though, for many students, the benefits are far less obvious. Many students feel that they’re not learning as much as they would in person, leading to a lack of motivation and increased procrastination. Fortunately, most professors have been accommodating during this time by adjusting office hours, deadlines and even class schedules. “Most of my professors/instructors have personally said that they will try their best to respond to emails when they can, and one professor even gave his number to everyone,” CAS sophomore Sebastian Sukdeo told WSN in an email. “In terms of homework and tests, everything is now mostly flexible, where I can hand in homework after the deadline and it could be alright.” However, some professors aren’t as lenient. “One week my WiFi in my house stopped working and I had to email my assignment in the day after it was due … but [the TA] then told me to contact my service provider to get a record of the internet not working to prove it to him,” Gallatin first-year Garrett Higgins said. Beyond the levels of accommodation that individual professors operate on, students have seen structural changes in their classes. In the lab section of science courses, where students once performed experiments and carried out procedures, they now analyze research papers. “Labs are basically just lectures now,” Sukdeo said. “I’m learning the theory behind why I would be doing certain procedures, but I’m not
gaining any motor skills from it.” These difficulties aren’t solely localized within labs. Art students with studio courses have also found disappointment and difficulties in transitioning to online classes. “Studio classes have been a lot of breakout room time and lots of doing the work individually then discussing or presenting that in class,” Tisch first-year Cristian Jurado said. “I am currently directing a project for class over Zoom which has been very difficult when the playing space is the tiny square of Zoom and my cast is not in the same room together.” When students must transition from a three-dimensional, hundred-foot stage to a digital background framed around a computer screen, work can become awkward and challenging. Tisch first-year Ryan Russo has been struggling with his Performance Strategies class, where students learn basic acting techniques and how to direct other actors. “We were supposed to work with actors in person and direct a scene in a studio, but now we are just doing pre-planning and having a 15-minute discussion with our teacher envisioning it instead,” he said. “So it’s definitely a little disappointing to not have been able to direct the scenes in person.” With the status of fall semester uncertain, it is unclear how long these learning conditions, and the disappointments that come along with them, will persist. In the face of these unprecedented situations, everyone has had to adjust to the drastic changes of school, but no one knows for sure what the future holds for fall semester classes. Email Ivy Zhu at culture@nyunews.com.