“COVID caused all of us to rethink our course design and explore innovative ideas to carry out our mission of hands-on learning,” says IAA Director Glori Hyman as she explains the origin of the IAA’s first-ever Film Festival, an event set up for IAA students to share videos about their summer internships.
Hyman laughs and readily admits that calling a screening of student-created internship videos a film festival seems grandiose, but she wanted to create a fun environment, get students engaged, and entice students to showcase their best effort. Prior to 2020, as part of their course work in INAG 289: Internship Experience & Professional Development, students were required to give an oral presentation summarizing their internship experience. Then, COVID happened and students could no longer gather in person. Hyman and Heather McHale, IAA Lecturer and Advisor, designed a new assignment. Students had to boil their 320-hour internship down to a 2 ½ minute video that highlighted the salient points of and reflected on their summer experience while portraying a professional image.
During the film festival, the students were encouraged to eat popcorn and Raisinets as the class watched the videos online. Then the students voted for the top three videos to be shared publicly on IAA social media sites. “The voting ended in a tie for first place and a tie for second place,” says Hyman, “so this year we have 4 top videos to be shared. I consider it a wonderful bonus.”
The winning videos were created by Haley Moore, Sam Harrison, Ga’Nyah Minor, and Kia Calloway.
