My First Internship

Voice of America is the first internship program I received; it has been the best experience since I was a journalism major. While seeking an internship, I applied to several places such as the Washington Post, Dow Jones News Fund, BuzzFeed, and Vox. Also, I applied for some local newspapers as well as news media companies. But they rejected my application. Desperate, I went on LinkedIn and saw an advertisement for VOA Internship Application. I applied immediately.

Source: VOA logo

I have heard about Voice of America before, especially since I am Vietnamese and they have a Vietnamese division, I sometimes read their stories. A few weeks later, I received an email from Mr. Chuong Duong, the editor of VOA Vietnamese, who asked me to schedule an interview with them. I was beyond excited and happy. But mixing with that feeling, I felt highly nervous because that was not the first time they asked me for an interview. After each interview for an internship, I received a letter of rejection. However, I just went ahead and did my best. I was shocked because when I applied for a VOA internship, I wanted to work for the American division. Instead, the Vietnamese division picked me up, which turned out to be a good thing. The interview was through phone, which there were three people joined in. Mr. Duong, Mr. Giao Pham, the VOA Vietnamese senior editor, and Ms. Tra Mi, the reporter. It lasted one hour. They asked me so many things, such as telling about my work samples, my study, my podcast, and what I can do in VOA Vietnamese. It was stressful. After the interview, they told me they would contact me again for the result. There was a 30% that I might get this internship position because I have learned from previous interviews with other news organizations. Three days later, I received an email from Mr. Duong and got the internship. A sense of relief ran through my body, and I screamed joyfully.

I began my internship in February. My first story was about Vietnam, which covered the illegal arrest of Dong Guangping, a Chinese human rights activist who escaped to Vietnam and disappeared in Hanoi. I talked to his daughter, Catherine Dong, who is living in Canada right now, to ask more about her father and her comment on her father’s disappearance. The story went really well and got in the top 5 most-read articles for a week. The internship at VOA is unpaid, so I receive nothing but experience.

The headquarter is in Washington, D.C. I work remotely from California. My mentor, Vu Pham, will assign me one or two stories to cover each week. He sent me all the information and a list of contacts I could call to interview. The areas I usually cover are Vietnam issues, Vietnamese communities worldwide, special events, and the human rights situation in Vietnam. I sometimes help the division translate documents into Vietnamese. Until now, I have helped them with ten stories.

During my time working for VOA Vietnamese, I have learned so many things, from journalism to Vietnamese culture, from writing to interviewing, from editing to publishing a story. They are all so meaningful. But one thing I accomplished that I value the most is the trust and the love from people around me. When I was in charge of covering a story relating to a petition about the protest against the Vietnamese government's 'interference' in religious freedom, I talked to some people involved in this petition and a Priest in Orange County. Before the story was published, the petition was signed by a few people because of its popularity. After it was published, more people read the story and signed the petition, which, when it’s completed, they will send to the Vatican for international attention. Then, they called me to thank me for helping them. In another story where I interviewed a mother of a wrongfully convicted inmate in Vietnam, I could hear her crying. Her son had been charged with abusing of democratic freedoms to oppose the government. She continued to guarantee that her son didn’t do it. At the end of the interview, she asked me to help her to write the article to show his innocence. There were other stories when I talked to Vietnamese people, I could feel for them a lot even though in the position as a journalist, I should not be biased or lean on a side. I must stay neutral all the time. But somehow in me, I feel for them. After each article, they usually sent me a thank you email or called me to say how much they appreciated those stories. That is my accomplishment.

When I work for VOA, Mr. Pham is my mentor and directly assigns me stories to cover. He called and explained where I should begin and who I should talk to. He is a nice mentor and taught me in each article. After finishing, I sent him my story to check and edit. Sometimes, he sent it back for me to add more information or talk to more people for the record. We usually meet each week to review each story published that week and evaluate the stories from last week. Working with them is one of the best times in my life.

In order to secure an internship, thank you to Career Center. I met and asked for the resume and cover letter review. She made some corrections and recommendations for me in order to make them perfect. I attended workshops to learn more about my future career. So CSUF Career Center has helped me to achieve this internship and future job. Thank you so much.

I really enjoy my time at Voice of America so far. I am still doing an internship for them. I don’t know if I can work there permanently, but it has been an excellent opportunity to be a part of the Voice of America Vietnamese internship program.