intern

[Scorche]

Howdy howdy.
I'm not sure if I'm posting this at the right spot but here it goes. I'm finishing (hoping to anyway) my degree in New Media next year. And one of the 'courses' I should to take is an internship. There are a bunch of opportunities in my area (alberta/canada), but I want to get some experience abroad. I'm thinking New Zealand or Australia.
so here's the question - does anyone have any insight on this. I don't mean if you know of a position I can fill, but rather what is the outlook. I've looked on the web and I can't see much of a need in that part of the world. Does a lot of this kind of work get outsourced to companies in US or India ?
Anybody know of a good place to check this out? Sofar I haven't been very lucky though. found some companies
http://www.shinemedia.com.au/
http://www.pixelcreative.com.au
http://www.vikingbear.com/
http://www.wildlime.com/
http://www.mangoville.com/

Anyone know of any other companies perhaps?
the other thing is, I haven't really done up a portfolio. But since I'm a year away from doing the internship - should I get one now before I go around asking if they take interns?

hmm so many questions...

[norb]

As part of my university degree we were required to do 6 months of an intership or group project. Most people I know had trouble finding interships (especially paid ones) and opted for the group project or just working for their "mates-dad's web firm" as a code monkey.

I did my internship with the ABC New Media Dept. as a Flash developer... Wonderful opportuntity and great people to work for... however this was full time and unpaid.

I assume you are looking to be a flash developer/designer? If your interested in coming to Australia I suggest you have a look on seek.com.au and careerone.com.au for people advertising for flash guru's. This will give you and idea of who is working in the area.

Hope this helps. Also most people want to see a portfolio of your work at uni to get an idea of what your capable of. I would suggest that you put a lot of work into this as a polished portfolio works wonders. Another thing I may suggest is to do your research into the companies you are applying for and write them a pitch of what you can offer them specifically. This is what I did to get my intership and it worked a treat.

p.s. I met someone from alberta canada here in Melbourne recently. you canadians are awesome.