Faith Chihil signing in
Leaving sunny California for Georgia at an inhumane 6:20 in the morning on Friday. Oi, packing.
“Now Boarding” by ChrisM70
Leaving sunny California for Georgia at an inhumane 6:20 in the morning on Friday. Oi, packing.
“Now Boarding” by ChrisM70
Flight-ready
First Georgian battle wound, got too excited for pancakes.
— Faith Chihil
(1:15 = Decatur!)
Tomorrow is our first day at our respective agencies, I’m off to Matlock. We rode around the city today as you can see, snappin’ up pancakes and the sights. Also found the buildings where we’ll be working, very noice.
In the meantime, we’re staying in the dorms at Emory University. Pretty swanky digs with awesome air conditioning. That’s one really great thing about this city— as humid as it is, a/c is practically mandatory everywhere, especially public transportation.
- F
Bad picture, awesome agency!
What can I say? Not too much, due to the privacy agreement I signed, but I can tell you, dear readers, that I am working on a couple high profile brands I had only dreamed about. I have a ton or work to do— writing scripts, making comps, getting into people’s heads— and it’s challenging too. The markets are so different from what I’m used to, but that’s half the fun.
The rest of the fun is working with the staff. These are some cool cats, yo, who still remain warm and friendly. I’m so happy to be working with them all.
I’ve got two huge deadlines coming up on Thursday and Friday, and then? Partay on Saturday, yeah! Matt and I still need to hit up The Varsity…
— Faith Chihil
The above is a basic, though incomplete, list of things MAIP definitely is not.
Speaking for myself, I know that since I began applying for MAIP, I’ve gotten quite a few questions about what it is, what the goals of the program are and how exactly it benefits students and the rest of the advertising community. Now that Matt and I are approaching the half-way mark of our respective internships, I’m gonna try to spell out what we’ve been doing here in Atlanta as best as I can.
The Multicultural Advertising Intern Program began in 1973 to offer opportunities to minority students in what was basically a white man’s industry (some may argue the same is true today.) It is affiliated with the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) thus providing over 1,900 promising Asian/Asian American or Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Black/African American, American Indian/Native American, multiracial or multiethnic students the incredible experience of interning in some of the most elite advertising agencies in the US. Being an alumni of the program is an incredible honor to earn for any young ad biz hopeful.
When I say “earn,” I do not say it lightly. The selection process is long, intense, and very scary (much like a back-to-back marathon of Jurassic Park, but with fewer velociraptors.) Along with the basic GPA requirements and essay questions, applicants looking for internships on the Creative side (art direction, interactive/digital design, or my own craft, copywriting) must submit portfolios of their current work and develop a campaign of three print advertisements, per a provided creative brief.
These materials are reviewed by members of the 4A’s Diversity Steering Committee, the 4A’s Member Agency HR community and the 4A’s MAIP Alumni Association in order skim the cream off the top. Those chosen semi-finalists are then interviewed by MAIP staff or a representative from a participating agency closest to the student.
And then we play the waiting game.
After a few weeks (or in this year’s case, almost a month and a half) of waiting, finalists are notified of their finalist status and there is much joy and dancing.
The End.
Just kidding!
No, even if a student is selected as a finalist, they must still be chosen by an actual agency for the summer. Being a finalist means your information is put into a database of that year’s hopefuls. Since there are usually more students than positions, being a finalist really just means diddly until you get picked. Then the real fun starts.
One of the program’s biggest benefits, besides the internship itself, is that up front it takes care of transportation to and from each intern’s host city as well as housing. Later, interns are expected to pay a mere 30% back of the total cost. On top of that, For me, that means I get air travel and a furnished room (with electricity, water, gas, etc taken care of) for less than half of the full cost of rent at my apartment in San Jose. AWESOME.
Interns then do whatever their agencies tell them to do, and usually it means pretty awesome stuff. In a separate post, we’ll try to elaborate on that.
At the end of the program, MAIP flies out each student to New York City and houses them (absolutely free!) for the graduation ceremony and career fair.
And then we go home and if you’re REALLY REALLY good, you tell every minority ad student you can about the program and encourage them to apply. This leads to becoming a rad person, such as alums Jonathan Carmona (Account Coordinator at Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners), Shali Nguyen (Social Network Designer at Ning), and Brian Cheung (Digital Media Intern at Eastwick Communications, freelance art director and current Miami Ad School student).
So… yeah, that’s what we’re doing.
