Interns Impacted by the Pandemic

By Anastasia Zhelezova | Published by April 21, 2020

COVID-19 is the reason that schools, bars, restaurants, and your favorite nail salon are now closed. To reduce the spread of the virus, the government advised everyone to stay home. So what does this insinuate in terms of internships for college students? And what is Kean University doing to assure that students get the credit needed for time served before the shutdown? 

“I’m just glad the university is working with us interns to try to get our credits in despite the change,” says Tess Briozman, 21, Criminal Justice major at Kean University. “I intern at ICE. They have a law office in Newark and a detention center in Elizabeth that I work at.”  

At her internship in Newark, Briozman would put case files back in the filing room, make copies of files for the Freedom of Information Act, add new mail and documents to existing files and prepare files to go to court. In Elizabeth, she would gather mail from various areas throughout the facility, open, stamp and organize the mail and sit in on court cases.  

“I started on Jan. 10 and went two days a week for about four hours a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less,” Briozman said. 

Once the virus spread to New York City, it was not long before New Jersey began getting cases of people diagnosed with COVID-19. 

 Briozman’s internship took a sudden left turn as she pulled into the parking lot and parked her car when her boss called and told her not to come into work that day.   

“A faculty member from Elizabeth had tested positive so everyone was quarantined. And both buildings needed a deep clean. I haven’t heard back since. That was March 19,” Briozman said. 

Briozman feels as though a lot of valuable learning experience is being lost that her internship provided. She is uncertain that she will be able to return this semester. 

Despite the enforced quarantine and the harm, it is doing to interns, Kean University is currently trying to make sure that its students are still able to get their credits.  

Professor Dennis Bogdan, the Criminal Justice Department Internship Coordinator at Kean,  said that the university will provide alternative career-focused projects to students whose internships were affected by COVID-19. It is designed to move interns forward and the number of hours will depend on the projects completed.  

“Individuals will be notified in regards to their internships on the requirements that satisfy the unfulfilled internship hours,” Bodgan said. 

Michelle Boyce, 33, Criminal Justice major who is graduating in May began her internship at the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office in Totowa, NJ in Jan 2020. Boyce abruptly had to stop due to COVID-19. She was required to only be there once a week. However, due to her passion for the work she did there, she would attend twice. 

“It meant so much to be there because I aspire to become a prosecutor one day and stand up for the right of justice,” Boyce said. 

Boyce would assist in viewing files or cases to see if there were discrepancies with evidence and information in police reports, etc. She was allowed to sit through court cases and view how they were treated. In addition, she was able to listen and watch interrogation interviews as well as make corrections to the interview transcripts.  

“I also interacted with detectives and was able to watch crime scene footage of actual murders that had occurred,” Boyce adds.  

Once the courts shut down, prosecutors were ordered to work from home. However, the interns could not.  

“We were working on a very important trial and I was looking forward to going to court that week,” Boyce said. 

Jassen Christov, 24, Criminal Justice major has been interning at TAG Cyber for exactly one year now. 

“It’s a cybersecurity company located in NYC. I perform research on different cloud services as well as check whether or not certain websites are accessible in different countries.”  

Christov’s internship was already a work from home situation therefore the pandemic did barely any damage in regards to his internship.  

“It didn’t really affect my work because everything was done online anyway,” Christov said. 

Christov was required to go in person less than once a month. There is no travel ban to the city, but in terms of safety, it is not advised for the time being.  Until this is over, he will not be attending for the times he was required.  

Maeve Doyle, 20, is a junior and is a Public Relations major. Doyle interns at the Talbots design office on Park Avenue in NYC. She has been there since early January and is one of the lucky students who has been able to keep her internship.  

“They have me do weekly reads which is like catch-ups on the fashion industry and cool trends,” Doyle said. 

Doyle is another passionate intern who loves what she does. When asked if she is able to continue the intern position she stated that they originally were not going to let her work from home thinking that it would be too difficult but decided to keep the workload light for now instead of letting her go. 

“I’m a PR intern so I do model dressings, catalog new clothing shipments for upcoming seasons, work directly with the director and VP of their PR team to come up with/work on campaigns,” Doyle said. 

Doyle says that the team is currently doing the Dress for Success campaign with OWN Magazine.  

Her current project is on competitors recap to see how other stores such as Ann Taylor and J. Crew are handling the pandemic crisis.  

“They’re all currently working from home also trying to rebuild the Dress for Success campaign and planning for after quarantine,” Doyle said. 

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