MANKATO — Mike Leech didn’t need to do a “pros and cons” list when he got the offer last week. He accepted the internship immediately.

If he had mapped out the positives and negatives, the down-side list would have been sobering: The internship doesn’t pay a dime and an apartment in New York City is going to be outrageously expensive for a college student.

But the tally of advantages could have turned into a “Top 100” list pretty quickly for Leech, a mass communications major at Minnesota State University who dreams of a career in the entertainment industry.

He will be meeting some of the nation’s top celebrities in movies, sports and politics. He’ll go to work each day at the venerable “Ed Sullivan Theater” where Elvis Presley and The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were introduced to America. And he very well might end up with at least a cameo on national TV before the internship is done.

Leech didn’t bother with the “pros and cons” list because the very first item on the “pro” side would have trumped every trivial concern on the opposite side, such as not having a place to live.

“I’ll live in a closet to work for Letterman,” said Leech, whose five-month internship on the “Late Show with David Letterman” begins Jan. 2.

Leech said he’s been a fan of the show since he was about 10 years old. Like any devotee, Leech couldn’t have missed that Letterman has an internship program.

The college students show up regularly in skits, stunts and jokes — with the recurring theme being they’re an abused and somewhat expendable part of the show’s staff. Just this month, for instance, there was “Late Night Intern Jumping” where acrobat Mark Odgers leapt over a line of five and then six standing interns. And when a small fire ignited in the building several hours before another recent show, the evening’s Top Ten List was “Top Ten Things Overheard at the Late Night Fire,” concluding with “Forget the interns, Dave, save yourself.”

Leech said getting on the air is a relatively minor goal and he is ready and willing to perform a variety of grunt jobs.

“I’ll do whatever they ask me to do,” he said.

He already knows he’ll be working in the show’s talent department, which handles the endless supply of “A list” celebrities that “Late Night” attracts as guests.

“I’ll probably be picking all the brown M&Ms; out of the candy bowl,” said Leech, referring to the quirky requirements of some pampered stars.

The Eagle Lake native describes himself as extremely laid back, something the staffers in the talent department might have been attracted to, he said. They don’t want an intern that’s going to be overly excitable when he’s in the presence of mega stars.

“I think I’ll be OK,” he said. “Unless Bill Murray’s a guest.”

For Leech, who has produced several comedy short films, Murray is a personal hero.

But so is Letterman, even if Conan O’Brien has probably surpassed “Late Night” as the top show for Leech’s college-aged peers.

“I like Conan, too, but Letterman is still the best of the best,” Leech said.

His opportunity to work on the show came after he was invited for a three-hour interview in New York. Leech credits KEYC-TV Operations Manager Jan Ellanson with getting him the interview, saying she wrote e-mails to contacts at CBS encouraging them to take a look at Leech — who worked part time for nearly six years doing a variety of behind-the-scenes jobs for the station.

“I think he’s giving me far too much credit,” Ellanson said. “I’m sure it’s his charm that landed him the internship. ... He’s a real creative person and just a pleasure to work with.”

Ellanson is hopeful the internship will lead to career opportunities for Leech.

The Letterman opportunity will put him $6,000 to $8,000 in debt by the time he covers all of the costs associated with living for five months in NYC, but Leech hopes it will be an investment that pays off. He intends to stay in New York after completing the internship, which is the final requirement for his degree at MSU, and look for work in television or movie production — ideally in writing.

Mainly, though, he’s going to enjoy the moment.

“I’ll be living in New York, working for Letterman — my dream — and I won’t be worrying about money for five months,” he said. “I’ll have the rest of my life to worry about that.”