Much more than I expected

I know I haven’t been very helpful with blogging on this website, but today I have a free moment to gather my thoughts and share.

So, this is my very first (and sadly last) internship ever. I’m a little bit upset that it is my only because I really see the value of internships now that I have one. The one I have now though is probably the best one.

I’m a news reporter for my local newspaper. It’s completely different than I thought it would be and completely different from The Loquitur. What they have given me to do (and they keep me pretty busy) are mainly feature-type news stories and occasionally biz.

I found that at first I was really uptight and scared about going to meet random people in Chester County to interview them. But after I did it for a couple times, I realized that it wasn’t so bad. People were very happy about being in the news and were more than happy to help me out too.

I find that the most rewarding part of being a reporter is when you finish your story. To get in the last sentence of your article in is the best. At first there is slight writer’s block, the lead is always the hardest. But once I start writing it’s awesome. I like to sit back and think, “hey maybe I really can do this.” Without this internship I don’t think that I would have the opportunity to find this out about myself. During my J1 and J2 courses, researching and writing the articles sometimes seemed less than desirable. But I have changed my mind about it. It’s exciting!

As part of something that I have started for my own benefit, I have begun to pull aside people I work with and do mini-interviews. It’s amazing how much you find out about people and where they have come from. Usually they say something like “It just kind of happened and I stuck with it and I love it.” Everyone is also always happy to help me out. I found out that many of the reporters were not even communication majors in college. There were some who were political science, English and even Biology! Crazy how they ended up at a paper.

That’s about all I can think of at the moment. But, I’m definitely happy about what I’m doing.