Emily Baldwin

Southwest Airlines

This summer, I had the privilege of interning with Southwest Airlines as an audio and visual intern. I worked at Southwest’s headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and was part of the A/V Team at Southwest Airlines University.

Southwest Airlines University, SWAU, is in charge of creating the training content for nearly the entire company, meaning they are training over 70,000 employees! My team is responsible for creating all video, audio, and animation content for the trainings, as well as running internal live events held at headquarters. During my internship, my team completed over 75 projects ranging from short 30-second videos to eight-hour live events and everything in between.

As an intern, I was granted a lot of responsibility. I assisted in shoot days at the hangar, airport, flight simulators, cabin simulators and our studios, as well as many other places. I helped with lighting, working with talent, operating cameras, and running the teleprompter for these shoots. I was also handed several projects to edit throughout the summer, including eight videos in one week at one point!

Outside of video content, I learned a lot about photography, including how to take and edit professional headshots. I also learned more about corporate live events, what goes into the massive setup for them, and how it relates to the broadcast content we produce at the J-School at KU. I even got to run the switcher for one of them.

Although everything I mentioned was fantastic, the best part of my internship was working with such amazing people in such an awesome environment. Southwest is constantly praised and admired for its culture, and it's for good reason. My team consists of seven other people and every single one of them took the time to sit down with me and teach me something new in a very patient and professional way, but also as a friend.

Southwest truly felt like a home more than an internship, and I am so grateful for the entire experience. I had no idea what to expect going into this internship and really didn’t know if it would even align with my interests. It definitely did. I never imagined that I would be so lucky to work with such an amazing team and be a part of so many amazing experiences in such a short time.