National Geographic Internships: Getting In

How I got in…

As you can imagine, it was not easy getting into National Geographic.I started my quest as an outsider, with no direct contacts, completely in awe of the world renowned golden rectangle branding responsible for some of the most breathtaking imagery and adventure film making from across the globe.  Upon taking the advice of an admired documentary filmmaker while at the Sundance Film Festival for a Taylor University class, I set out to get an internship at National Geographic Television right before my senior year of college with the end goal of eventually getting hired. I simply wanted to go work for some of the world’s best in documentary film making and soak in as much as I could. The first time I applied, I basically threw out my resume to the bottom of the barrel with no real direct connection to the inside. As a back up plan, I decided the least I could do was just get myself out to DC for my last college summer, before graduating in December.

I must have applied for at least 20 different internships and when I found out I didn’t get into Geo my first try, I ended up accepting a paid, free housing internship working in the TV studio of a nonprofit political organization.  Did I ever consider myself political before that summer?  Not the least bit.  Am I interested in politics now? Barely.  But it got me out to DC with free housing and an income!  Once out here, I basically networked my way through a long series of blessed connections all the way inside the awe inspiring National Geographic Television glass doors via informational interviews with individual professionals which eventually helped get my foot in the door for a spring internship after I finished my coursework in December 2009.  In order to intern for National Geographic Television you have to prove that you are still a registered student, so even though I had finished my coursework, I postponed my graduation and registered for an additional internship credit, tagging this spring internship onto the end of my schooling and headed out to Washington DC with a life savings of… just about enough money to last me two months!  I was so determined, I took the crazy leap of faith regardless of the risks and picked up a waitressing job on the weekends to make ends meet.  A year later, I’m glad I can say it was all definitely worth it.

The internship…

My internship experience was pretty phenomenal.  It was actually very uncharacteristic of most intern experiences at National Geographic because I was placed directly within a fun, well organized production team with rare opportunities to do more than just menial intern paperwork and filing like so many other intern positions in the building.  Again, I feel very blessed and still to this day accredit every step leading to the opened doors and phenomenal production team who took me under their wing to the grace of God who was truly looking out for me and opening doors the whole way. (Someday, I want to make documentary films for His kingdom and His purposes…)

The show I began interning for was such a dream job for me, coming from an engineering family, but I’d reckon no one reading this article has ever heard of it.  “World’s Toughest Fixes” is, in my opinion, one of the greatest engineering shows for adventure seeking adrenaline junkies there is out there.  It’s a shame it is no longer in production, but I’m jumping ahead of myself.  When I showed up on the team in January 2010, there was a huge demand to find more stories, asap.  So two weeks into my internship, I wrote up a story pitch for an episode in Louisiana on the building of the Huey P. Long bridge that, to my surprise, got complimented by the higher ups at National Geographic Channel (our client).  Our series producer later proposed to the rest of the production team that my format and pitch structure become the standard structure for all World’s Toughest Fixes story pitches.  (Thank you Taylor University for preparing me well!)

By the end of the internship, by proving my strong work ethic and dedication to the job, I was incrementally handed more opportunities and responsibilities, including, working side by side with a producer (or director in the Hollywood terminology) prepping a shoot on St. Paul Island, Alaska in the Bering Sea with the fisherman from Deadliest Catch. By the end of March (a month and a half before my internship was suppose to end), our incredible series producer, (known for giving young people a chance and hiring them on against most NG trends), hired me onto the team to help coordinate the post production work flow of what ended up being the last 5 episodes of World’s Toughest Fixes ever.

What I do now…

Once World’s Toughest Fixes wrapped up at the end of the summer, I was lucky to move on to a more exciting opportunity thanks to some connections on the inside and a lot of persistence on my part with an executive producer.  Currently I am coordinating the post production work flow for a three years in the making special about the ocean (including the first ever 3D episode with National Geographic Television).  So mainly I am wrangling what will eventually be about 800 hours of footage, coordinating graphic animations between scientists and animators, and doing some basic cut down and string out editing in preparation for the final edit. It’s a fast paced, hectic production environment and needles to say, trying to get out of the office at a decent time every evening is quite a difficult task. I often find myself questioning what I got myself into with this career like so many other people out there, fantasizing about what it could be like to have a normal 9 to 5. But at the end of the day, I’m usually able to snap myself out of it and remember that despite the blood, sweat and bureaucracy, I’m still pretty darn inspired by everything that National Geographic stands for and I sure do feel lucky to be here.

Photo credit: Osseous, Chris[topher] Lin