Internship Program Proves Valuable Experience for UMD Student

MDDC set me up with The Montgomery Journal last summer and it proved to be the most valuable experience of my college career.

The Montgomery Journal is the daily newspaper of Montgomery County, MD. It emphasizes coverage of local news, school events, sports and business happenings in the county.

At The Journal, I had the same responsibilities as a reporter. I was given a beat to work on during the semester – American Legion Baseball. This beat involved going to several games, following the news and events in the league and writing two to three clips a week.

Aside from the beat, I contributed to other breaking stories, notes and interviews. At times, I was also responsible for putting together sports notes, statistics and other information to be printed in the paper. Pitching feature story ideas that involve something or someone in the county was strongly encouraged by the editor.

By the end of the summer, I had 25 clips for my portfolio. One of the highlights was a story on Montreal Expos outfielder Curtis Pride, which included quotes from baseball legend Cal Ripken and other players.

I would recommend this internship to future students because it offers the opportunity to jump right in with a publication as one of the reporters. The editors at The Journal treated me as a staff writer and gave me the freedom to pursue my own creativity. The MDDC Internships are an excellent program that made this experience possible.

Schwab, a senior journalism major at the University of Maryland College Park, participated in the 2001 MDDC internship program.