Not only was he a script intern at NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” — a job he thought far-fetched when he applied — he also spent his days off immersing himself in New York City’s comedy scene.
The communication studies and dramatic art major spent his days trying to find his comedic voice. His nights consisted of watching comedy shows and taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade improvisation comedy theater.
“An internship isn’t just about the internship,” Bonsignore said. “It’s about where you’re going and how you’re spending the rest of your time and treating your creative hobbies like a job and working at it like a job.”
He treated the experience like a job, even though it was just an internship. Bonsignore said pay wasn’t a huge factor in his internship search.
Research from Michigan State University showed that only 43 percent of arts and humanities majors reported taking a paid internship and 68 percent of companies in the arts, entertainment and broadcast sector offer mostly unpaid internships.
“I would have taken anything. I feel like I’m young, and if I need to take something unpaid, that’s just kind of how it has to be because it gets my face in there,” he said. “If I wasn’t getting paid currently, I could put in groundwork for a job in the future.”
Pay did factor into senior studio art major Kerry O’Shea’s internship search — O’Shea couldn’t take an unpaid summer internship unless it was close to her hometown in Maine. When she didn’t find a paid internship in cities such as Boston and New York, she accepted a graphic design internship with the Greater Portland Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, a mere 10 minutes from home.
To offset the internship, the studio art major worked a retail job five days a week.
