The Nicholls State University Athletics Department is offering a range from six to 10 internships for students to get published, get a glimpse behind the scenes and gain work experience in the “real world.”

 All internships are unpaid positions open to current college students or recent college graduates.

Associate director of marketing and development for Nicholls Athletics Brandon Ruttley said that the department is looking for interns for Nicholls Nation, Junior Colonel Club, graphic design, media relations, ticket sales and marketing.

“For the students that want to get into the athletic side of marketing and media relations, this is a great opportunity to get a lot of your work published,” Ruttley said. “We’re looking at this as a good resume-building experience.”

Even for students that do not get paid for internships, students can get three hours of credit for mass communication, business and art for graphic design.

Katelyn Thibodeaux, senior mass communication major, is an intern for athletics and said mass communication requires the intern to work 10 hours a week for credit, but that does not prohibit students from working more hours.

Thibodeaux said through the internship she has been able to get hands-on experience of “real world” work.

“It’s honestly the best experience you can have,” Thibodeaux said. “I’m lucky because I’ve gotten to dip into all of the internships. I do a weekly newsletter that goes out to 5,000 people, and then I’ll do a press release that gets picked up by newspapers.”

Ruttley said that the Geaux Colonels Web site receives 5,000 hits a day. Ruttley said there is also an opportunity for interns to work on a TV show headed by Mike Wagenheim, and it will be a weekly show that will be on CST that stretches from Texas to Arkansas and Oklahoma to Florida.

“In the long run, we want this to become competitive to where students are jockeying for internships,” Ruttley said. “Again, this is real-life experience. This is not some fake class project that will never get published in the community. This is stuff that gets picked up by all local newspapers, and we also have a weekly TV show that they can be apart of.”

Sports information director Clyde Verdin said that this is a great opportunity for students on campus to get some valuable experience, and they are looking for students who have time and will treat this job like a real job.

Verdin said instead of saying you are one of 200 at Louisiana State University or other big places, you can say you are one of 20 here at Nicholls, which means much more.

“This is also an opportunity for students who feel like they have to go elsewhere to get real world experience, and there’s real world experience right in their backyard,” Verdin said.

Jamie Bustos, also sports information director, said he wishes he would have taken the opportunity to intern when he was in college because it would have helped him out a lot in the long run.

“I never really did a whole lot when I was in school, but if I had an opportunity like Katelyn, it would have helped me out tremendously,” Bustos said.

Thibodeaux said at other internships you might bring people coffee and watch other people do their job, but you are not going to watch here. She said it is going to be hands-on, and a great experience for students.

“I’ll be walking out of here with four years experience because of Nicholls Athletics,” Thibodeaux said. “My portfolio is going to be huge because of Nicholls athletics, and you get all this experience and will be one step ahead of everyone else applying for jobs.”

Students can email Ruttley at [email protected] for applications and more information.