The Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University is an incredible resource for faculty, staff, and students. I learned about their intern position from a posting on the Elon Job Network website and began working with CEL in the fall of 2022. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Jessie L. Moore and Jennie Goforth during my time as one of CEL’s publishing interns. Both have been patient with me as I’ve grown into my position and needed help navigating new skills, from properly citing sources to understanding and utilizing SEO content.  

I am a second-year English major who remained undecided until the spring of my first year at Elon University. I had never been an intern before when I applied to work with the Center for Engaged Learning, and I had minimal experience with the necessary skills such as copy editing and graphic design, which I developed during my time as a graphic design chair on the Student Union Board. Publishing and editing was a field that interested me, but I had only ever applied the necessary abilities for it a handful of times. Working with CEL has helped me build on those skills as well as create new ones that I can now apply to several different occupations.  

The Center for Engaged Learning releases various books and edited collections. During my time with CEL, I have worked on content for Writing Beyond the University, Cultivating Capstones, and Key Practices for Fostering Engaged Learning. While these are generally directed towards faculty and staff, I have found that the information within them is extremely useful to be aware of as a student. For example, I created a couple book trailers for Cultivating Capstones in which the authors give a general overview of the book. In doing this, I gained experience with video editing, which is something I hadn’t done much of before. I was also able to learn about how to get the most out of a capstone experience through watching the videos I took clips from. Gaining experience with video editing is valuable but would be available to me at a variety of internships. What can’t be replicated anywhere else however, is the combination of that with information about capstones that directly applies to me as a student.  

The benefit to working with CEL is that their work doesn’t only focus on students’ experiences during their undergraduate years but also promotes growth after college. As an intern, I’m exposed to a lot of the content about engaged learning. This provides me with an understanding of what my professors’ and mentors’ goals are, as well as what mine should be.  

This internship has supplied me with many experience-based skills including copyediting, online publishing, graphic design, video and audio editing, and much more. Not only have I learned from the tasks that I am given on a week-to-week basis, but I’ve also been exposed to content about engaged learning that is extremely beneficial to my standing as an undergraduate student. I’ve consumed a vast amount of knowledge about how to be a successful student as well as gained experience in a field I’m interested in exploring after college.   

Through this experience I’ve realized how important internships can be as a steppingstone into higher levels of a student’s chosen discipline. As previously stated, I hadn’t been an intern before applying to CEL. I knew what kind of work I wanted to go into, but I had no idea if I would actually enjoy it or not. College is such an important time to figure out the ins and outs of your desired profession, and internships are an incredibly beneficial way to do that.

Carissa Pallander is a sophomore at Elon University majoring in English with a minor in multimedia authoring. She has been working with the Center for Engaged Learning as a publishing and editing intern since September of 2022.

How to Site This Post

Pallander, Carissa, 2023. “Learning about Publishing and Engaged Learning as a CEL Intern.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), Elon University. May 2, 2023. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/cel-internship-experience/.