Portfolio Madness

For my interior Design Major, I am required to have an internship before I graduate; technically I can walk, and then complete my internship, but I have been looking all over Little Rock for one. I am wanting to Intern at an Architecture Firm, but with the job market the way it is, it makes it a little bit harder to find a job like that. So, I had an interview with Polk, Stanely, Rowland, Curzon, Porter architects, and I was very excited about this interview. They said that they didn't have enough work to have an intern, but they offered to still have an interview... which is good practice, and they would look over my portfolio and give me some pointers.
Now, making my portfolio was not a very easy task mainly because I didn't have any good ones to look at as reference. The ones my teacher had were ones that students left behind... I don't know how they got jobs leaving their portfolios at school; oh well, needless to say there were not good ones none in the right format etc. For my portfolio, I had to have an actual porfolio book that is at least 11x17. We were to display our work in it, and most people just take pictures of their boards and art and literally tape or glue them down on paper. They also take "nice" paper and put that on the pages to make it look nice. The only problem is that all of those projects ended up looking like a scrapbook rather than a portfolio. So, I had a lot of work to do to avoid the scrap book look. Grant was very understanding about the whole me wrecking the apartment and stressing over this whole project. It is a scary thought to think that a portfolio could be the difference in your getting hired or not. It is also very hard picking out which pieces to include and which ones to leave out.
The day before my interview my acutal portfolio book came in, and it was the wrong one, so I had to find a last minute different one to work just for this interview. I wasn't very happy about it, but there was only so much I could do. Then I went and had my interview, it went great. The interior Designer on staff there was so nice and great, but they still didn't have work for an intern. One of the partners, Mr. Stanely wanted to meet me, but he was in a meeting before and after my meeting, so that was a bummer. The only disappointing thing is that they couldn't tell me how to improve my portfolio. I was hoping that they would butcher it so that it would evntually after a lot of modification turn out amazing, but they couldn't tell me anything to change which is good and bad.
So now, I still don't have an internship, but I have a semi completed portfolio that still needs some tweaking,but I have one interview under my belt which is a plus. Also, making a portfolio is a requirement one of my classes so it is nice to think that I am ahead in that aspect at least.