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As summer continues to chug along and session C gets under way, I finally feel like I have the authority and right to expound on the entertainment industry – or “the industry,” as lame people call it.

We all know Los Angeles is bursting with film and television jobs. I mean, it’s Hollywood right? So I think I am forgiven in choosing to look to the entertainment business in my search for a nearby summer internship.

I started my development internship at Fox Television Studios. I didn’t really know what to expect. The position consisted of some script reading and coverage. When I found out I’d get to hang out on the Fox lot, I thought hey, cool.

Sure the internship was unpaid, but most of them are, and I just wanted the experience. Because it’s unpaid, the internship position requires that I receive school credit. Not only is this lame because I don’t need the credit for English 199 and the extra units are in fact a bad thing if I double major, but I have to do all this extra work (okay just journals and papers, but still). And since it’s a summer sessions class, I have to pay per unit.

When I realized I would essentially be paying for my internship, the whole experience factor didn’t mean as much.

Despite the drawbacks, the internship is actually pretty cool. We get rotated between different departments. There’s office work, covering desks, answering phones, reading scripts, practicing writing coverage, photocopying, filing, and researching. We have a good amount of freedom, we get all the water and carbonated beverages we want, I’ve eaten birthday cake twice, we get to walk around and meet random people, listen to guest speakers, and hang out with friendly, resourceful assistants.

I have to say I have never felt more like a misanthropic English major than when I am sitting there pondering the other interns, who bring in plates and baskets full of home baked goods and matching napkins for all the executives and assistants. And when I see an intern rush in and make a beeline to the counter so she can start brewing the coffee for everyone--even though she’s early, is it bad that I want to gag? After all, you only get as much out of an internship as you put in, right?

My internship coordinator told us the first day that her motto is just to meet people and have fun. But it’s not all fun and games. A lot of my fellow interns are serious about their networking. They will introduce themselves and volunteer their services to anyone. In a room with one guest speaker and thirty interns you can bet that there will be a handful of the thirty who will ask fifty questions each and then crowd around the speaker afterwards to shake hands and exchange e-mail addresses.

And there is already smack-talking among interns. I get the feeling interns really don’t care about other interns because they view them as either useless or competition.

Interns leave the room and others start talking about them like, “Dude, you guys should hear what this intern was saying in that executive’s office” or something, and then that intern leaves and another starts gossiping. I find it fascinating, in a Discovery Channel kind of way.

Despite everything, interning has been a really good experience. If anything, maybe it’s shown me I don’t want to work in the film industry. Or maybe I’ll change my mind; the internship is only half way over, after all. Who knows what might happen in the next month?

So hey, since you’re already here in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, why not take the opportunity to find out if it’s the thing for you? Do an internship. Meet people and have fun. And maybe you’ll learn a little something in the process.