Internships Help Build Impressive Portfolio

Jocelyn (Black) Morris ’05 said that the liberal arts education at Trinity provided the fertile learning environment for a student with myriad interests. And through a switch in majors, varied internship experiences, and eventual career changes, Morris said she continued to “pull” from what she learned in her Trinity courses, philosophy, psychology, and sociology core courses.

Her internship experiences–the first as a public relations intern at Chicago’s Mayor’s Office of Special Events and the second as a stringer in Washington, D.C. for the SouthtownStar–gave Morris the “learn on the job” experience her communication arts professor stressed.

Morris graduated with “a very impressive portfolio,” which included an article in the SouthtownStar about a local resident who participated in President Ronald Reagan’s funeral ceremony, an event that occurred while Morris was interning in D.C.

Soon after graduating Trinity, Morris continued her communications studies at Medill School of Journalism—Northwestern University, continuing to work in media and in government. Morris, whose experience ranges from public relations to policy research, manages a team of 15 staff at the Social Security Administration in Chicago, where she has been employed since 2009.