NEW YORK – This summer, Academy of Art University softball outfielder Jessica West has gone east to put her School of Web Design & New Media skills to work in a Visual/Interactive Design internship with the Digital Team at Black Entertainment Television (BET) under the umbrella of global mass media giant Viacom.

"It is great to see another athlete placed in a prestigious internship in their industry," said head coach Sonja Garnett. "Jessica West is assertive and works hard. She certainly earned this opportunity. It has been great to follow her as she explores New York and finds success at BET. This is just the start for her and she is inspiration for our incoming artist-athletes."

When she wasn't hitting home runs to help ART U beat No. 16 California Baptist this past spring, West was applying to various companies in the Bay Area only to find limited options due to the competition among tech companies. She expanded her search as a result, pursuing potential opportunities on the East Coast, Southern California, Portland, and even other countries. Armed with a portfolio battle-tested from reviews at Academy of Art, West followed a friend's suggestion and looked into Viacom with the potential to be placed into departments ranging from MTV to Comedy Central to VH1. In mid-March, when the Urban Knights had returned from their 10-game roadtrip to Hawaii, she learned that BET Digital had expressed interest and requested an interview. Before you could say, "DJ Jess West," she was making arrangements to head to New York this summer.

"This year, I was really focused on my portfolio website because I knew that's what gets you an internship or job," said West. "Throughout the year, the Web Design & New Media Department would host portfolio reviews with people from the industry. You apply and then it's basically getting feedback on your website by people in the industry and then you get a chance to ask them a ton of questions that help prepare you for what to expect. I got to meet with Samsung, Google, Facebook, Airbnb, and Lyft."

Fast-forward to today where a typical workday sees West take the subway to Times Square, meet with a team of designers, and get into current projects. The Portland, Ore. native's responsibilities include Photoshop designs, style guide implementation, and occasional collaboration with the user experience team primarily toward an upcoming BET website redesign for desktop and mobile.

"It's really cool to see the process of a large company going through such a big redesign," said West. "I mainly do a lot of graphics that will go on the website or illustrations and I've been recently getting into the site's navigation. It's cool because occasionally I'll go on the site and see something I designed or helped out with!"

In addition to her day-to-day responsibilities, West and the team of designers were working diligently toward the 16th edition of the BET Awards in late June. A whirlwind of preparations included the production of quick videos and advertising materials featuring the more than 100 nominees for over 20 different award categories. Game for whatever task came her way, West was able to contribute to one of the most watched award shows on cable television.

With BET being a subsidiary of Viacom, a variety of perks have come along with West's internship. The Daily Show and The Nightly Show sets are available to visit regularly in addition to select shows from Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and MTV among others. Particularly valuable for a career, interns are also given access to a learning center where they can take classes or sit in on meetings open to all departments.

While West's work in the School of Web Design & New Media undoubtedly prepared her for this opportunity so too did her work on the softball field. As a junior this past year, West paced the Urban Knights in a variety of statistical categories en route to being named All-PacWest Second Team, but the three-time Academic All-PacWest honoree demonstrated leadership beyond just her role atop the batting order. West's contributions to team comradery and collective support have made ART U Softball into the family it is today.

 

"Softball has given me experiences and knowledge of things I would never learn in a classroom and may never find in a work environment, yet a huge part is it has helped me know what being on a team means," said West. "Even at work, you have your team - for us our team is the designers. You know how to treat your teammates and how to treat your boss, you know what's right to do and what's wrong."

Looking back on her three productive years at Academy of Art University, West can point to a trio of important ingredients to success: focus on one's portfolio, develop a network, and intern as soon as possible.

"Your portfolio is what you leave this school with to get a job and you need good designs to get you that job so definitely back up all your files and don't throw anything away," said West. "Also, just connect. Especially in San Francisco, there are a ton of people you can meet and connections go a long way. Apply for any portfolio review that you can and go to any meeting when a company comes to campus. I'm getting a lot of good experience, but after this internship I know exactly what I want and don't want to do now. Our school does a great job setting you up for the real world if you take advantage of the opportunities, but at the same time, no school will give you the experience of working for a big corporate company. So make sure you get an internship and just enjoy college. Don't rush it!"