r " "0
menial chores nor a dream job, the best pharmaceu
internships offer the chance to learn a com- preciated L
pany's entire operation-from the bottom pany vice p
up. Jonathan Eig of Northwestern worked cause, says
in the Washington bureau of the Los An- take sometf
geles Times, where he both fetched medical it for comps
prescriptions for reporters and wrote na- on major ac
tionally syndicated articles. Still, he counts utive took I
his summer there as "the most important ing him tod
part of my college education. I learned move up in
more than I did in class." that in sch
So did Dan Lambert, a Northwestern For thos
grad student in business-but he says it selves andg
wasn't easy. "When you first get there they ships can r
really exclude you because they know even if you
you're not going to be there for long," says sponsor, at
Lambert, who put in 11-hour days with a your aspir
Where to
Look First
tical firm. Not everybody ap-
ambert's efforts, and one com-
resident rewrote his reports be-
Lambert, he "didn't want to
hing an intern had done and use
any policy." Still, he got to work
counts, and one company exec-
Lambert under his wing, treat-
dinner and advising him how to
n the industry. "You don't get
ool," Lambert says.
e who are able to assert them-
get past the gofer tasks, intern-
epresent a no-lose proposition:
don't get a job offer from your
least you get the chance to test
ations against reality. In addi-
tion, you may absorb enough expertise-or
buzzwords-to make you sound like an in-
sider in future interviews. An extra round
of contacts can never hurt; New Yorker
Sean Lane got to meet Mayor Ed Koch and
other notables during his stint as a man-
agement intern in city government. And
who knows, you might make it big enough
to start hiring trainees of your own. "[The
company] gets a low-price employee, gives
the guy a desk and maybe he'll be a super-
star," says journalist Eig. "It's not com-
pletely one-sided, but the intern gets the
better part of the deal."
CsHRISTOPHE M.BELLITTOBth
SAAH OsOKSN inEantEn, LAnA BJALERT
in Boston and EaIs HIMMELaBACs in Berkeley
ntern programs come in all
shapes and sizes, frQm gra-
tisgigstolucrative trainee po-
sitions. Most are semester-
long and low-paying; students
work one or two full days each
week for something near thej
minimum wage, counting the
time in place of a class in their
course load. Summer intern-
ships, on the other handallow!
you to work regular business
hours-or longer-for a week-
ly or monthly stipend. Not all
schools accept every sponsor's
program for academic credit;
be sure to check with your de-
partmenthead.
Theinternexplosionhasre-
sulted in a number of books
and clearinghouses to handle
student inquiries. Some asso-
ciations maintain offices and
directories for individual pro-
fessions or industries. The fol-
lowing resources are more
general, listing programs by
field and region, and repre-
sent the best place to start
your sponsor search. Check
the library and career-plan-
ning office for more detail.
CENTERS:
Apprentice Alliance (matches
apprentices with "masters"in
Bay Area jobs from crafts
topublishing). LucilePhillips,
coordinator, 151 Portero Ave-
nue, San Francisco, Calif.
grams and resource papers
for faculty seeking to estab-
lish experiential education
programs on their campuses).
Jane C. Kendall, executive di-
rector, 122 St. Mary's Street,
Raleigh, N.C. 27605. Tel.:
(919) 834-7536.
The Volunteer Clearinghouse of
D.C. (recruits 600 interns
for public-service work in
the D.C. area). Debbie Cotton,
director, 1313 New York Ave-
nue N.W., Room 303, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20005. Tel.: (202)
638-2664.
The Washington Center (match-
es 1,100 students and faculty
with government and private-
sector programs in the D.C.
area). Claire Guimond, direc-
tor, 1101 14th Street N.W.,
12th floor, Washington, D.C.
20005. Tel.: (202) 289-8680.
BOOKS:
1986 Internships, lists 35,000
nationwide, edited by Lisa S.
Hulse. (F& W Publications,
Inc., 9933AllianceRoad, Cin-
cinnati, Ohio 45242. $14.95.)
The National Directory of Intern-
ships, lists 400 nationwide,
(NSIEE [see above]. $15.)
Directory of Washington In-
ternships, 150 programs
in D.C. area. (NSIEE [see
above]. $9.50.)
The Experienced Hand: A Stu-
dent Manual for Making the Most
of an Internship, 10 steps to-
ward a successful internship,
by Timothy Stanton and Ka-
mil Ali. (Carroll Press, P.O.
Box 8113, Cranston, R.I.
02920. $6.95.)
DOW CHEMICAL
Testing your aspirations against reality: Intern at Dow Chemical
94103. Tel.: (415) 863-8661.
Chicago Metropolitan Center
(urban work-study program).
Ellen Van Someren, intern-
ship coordinator, 407 South
Dearborn, Suite 515, Chicago,
111.60610. Tel.: (312) 922-3243.
Financial Women's Association
of New York. Pamela McCann,
chairman, Intern Committee,
1221 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, N.Y. 10020. Tel.:
(212) 764-6476.
Great Lakes College Association
Philadelphia Urban Term (150 ur-
ban positions). Steve Brooks,
executive director, 1227 Wal-
nut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
19107. Tel.: (215) 574-9490.
National Commission for Cooper-
ative Education (organizes pro-
grams at 900 colleges). Ralph
C. Porter, president, P.O. Box
775, Boston, Mass. 02115.
Tel.: (617) 437-3778.
National Society for intern-
ships and Experiential Education
(NSIEE; publishes directories
of opportunities, handbooks
for students on finding pro-
lovable characters out of line drawings that end up
two inches tall. And these days, the 29-year-old
Breathed is at the height of his cartooning abili-
ties, infusing "Bloom County" with a captivating
blend of charm and sass. His confidence shows in
the remarkable variety of his subjects-can you
imagine Jim Davis giving Garfield a nose job?-
and the visual style he's worked hard to perfect.
And, in fact, Breathed says he's only become com-
fortable with the strip in the past couple of years.
Well-rounded cast: The key to the success of "Bloom
County" is its population. Breathed has created an
incredible variety of personalities, from the charm-
ingly naive Opus to the utterly sleazy Steve Dallas
to the anarchic Bill the Cat. "Berke's developed a
really rounded cast of characters," says Bill Phil-
lips, who edits Breathed's cartoon books at Little,
Brown. "He'sgiven them distinctive personalities.
To the reader, they're old and dear friends. When
people pick up the strip, they aren't just looking for
a joke, they're seeing how Opus is doing and what
Bill the Cat is up to." In fact, identification with his
cartoon crowd is so strong that half of the strip's
mailcomesaddressedtothem.
The varied nature of the "Bloom County" crew
enables Breathed to paint a variety ofemotions and
to comment on a number of topics. He created
Oliver Wendell Jones, the black technological whiz
kid, so he could treat, or mistreat, computers and
scientists. "If Ineed an asshole," he points out, "I'll
bring in Steve Dallas." In some cases, Breathed
says, he gets to live vicariously through his charac-
ters, and "some of them have definitely been cre-
ated to explore certain portions of my head." Ob-
serves his wife, Jody Boyman, "The fine points of
Berke's personality-his sensitive qualities-are
like Opus." (At one point, in a moment of panic,
Breathed utters the quintessential Bill the Cat
word: "Ack!") Sometimes a new character is added
to juice up the strip-and Breathed's interest.
That's true for a brand-new one: Rosebud the basse-
lope. This creature-inspired by the joke-postcard
animal, the jackalope, and modeled after the
Breatheds' pet basset hound, Sophie-is a basset
with antlers.
In at least one significant way, "Bloom County"
seems to be evolving into a "Peanuts" for the '80s.
Rather than focusing directly on the events and
trends of the day, Breathed filters them through
his characters. When, for example, Opus takes
personal ads at the Bloom County Beacon-an old
woman describing herself as "Tall, brunette ...
nice gams and just as slinky and sexy as all-git-
out"-the strip comments obliquely on how des-
perate modern romance can be. The humor of
"Bloom County" comes from personal responses to
modern circumstances, not from gags or jokes.
Like Charles Schulz in "Peanuts," Breathed keeps-
the focus personal at all times. And he says he's
developed a deep respect for Schulz and Al Capp,
Really flying: 'm
deathly afraid of boring
myself 'says the
cartoonist of his love for
planes, motorcycles
and speedboats
52 NEWSWEEK ON CAOMPUSE
OCTOBER 1986 OCTOBER 1986
NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS 13