Internship is Music to Student's Ears

Jake Shafer fumbles with the compact disc player in his car as he drives to Ventura. At first glance it might seem as if he's driving to the Vans Warped Tour concert for pure fun, to see bands that are old favorites and catch new sounds.

But Schafer is mixing business and pleasure as an intern with the music company that produced the tour's compilation CD. Music blasting, he agrees with the old Mastercard advertisements that the opportunity to be an unpaid intern in the music industry is priceless.

Shafer chose to intern for SideOneDummy Records-an independent label that produces music for a dozen punk bands, including The Mighty Mighty Bosstones-because the Los Angeles-based label represents some of his favorite bands, groups he has been listening to for years.

"They have a lot of very fun bands, a lot of really cool bands that people just connect with," said the Crescenta Valley High School graduate. He motioned to the compilation CD playing in the car, adding that the members of the band whose song was filling the car were in the office the other day, discussing their upcoming album.

Shafer-who minored in music and played bass guitar in a band throughout his years at University of California, Santa Barbara-sees coming in close contact with band members and scoring free advanced copies of new albums as only fringe benefits to an already-great opportunity.

"I need to do some sort of internship in order to break into the industry. Anybody who's ever made it anywhere had an internship," said the 23-year old student.

Instead of a paycheck, most interns receive college credit for their hard work, said Andra Verstraete, director of student employment at Glendale Community College.

"In the entertainment industry, jobs are really sought after. People would work them for free," Verstraete said. Internships are good experience and networking tools, and the college's Job Placement Center advises that they should be connected to the student's career goals.

Shafer, who completed his first year of law school at the University of San Diego, hopes one day to fuse his knowledge of law with his interest in music.

"It's exactly what I thought it would be," Shafer said of the internship he started in May. "It's a really fun place to work, but it's still efficient and well-managed."