The intern: TU students practicing professional journalism

By Daryl Lee Hale on June 15, 2016

Towson University students are making their mark on the journalism industry. Not only are alumni garnering awards, but students are branching out into the world of professional journalism. Each semester, a host of TU journalism students complete internships, freelance projects and work at various publications to put the skills they learn in the classroom to use.

Here is a Q&A with just a few of the students who recently completed journalism internships:

Justice Stanley ’16 – The Afro
Internship description: Writing, conducting interviews and taking photographs for the weekly publication for African-Americans in the Baltimore/Washington area

Memorable moment: Interviewing Anthony Anderson and Kenya Barris from ABC’s “Black-ish.”

Favorite thing about the internship: “It prepared me for working in a newsroom environment. I was covering not just one specific beat – I was on everything from politics to doing celebrity teleconference interviews to going to schools and covering charity events. It wasn’t guaranteed for me to come to the office and be doing this one thing. I may have come into the office and been working on a lawsuit or I may have been sent out to cover the repairing after the riots.” 

Cody Boteler ’17 – Baltimore City Paper
Internship description: Writing, fact-checking and scheduling calendars for the Baltimore news source

Memorable moment: “Literally my first day in the office, the editor-in-chief said, ‘I have a story for you because you’re interested in writing about the environment.’ So I got to write about the sewage problems that Baltimore City has.”

Favorite thing about the internship: Being able to pitch story ideas to the blogs editor and write about topics of interest

Carley Milligan ’16 – The Towerlight
Internship description: Editor-in-chief of TU student newspaper

Memorable moment: Receiving a Society of Professional Journalists Award for her work

Favorite thing about the internship: “I know a lot more about how a newsroom runs and how to piece together an article and my interviewing skills have really improved. I think that it has put me in a really good position to enter the workforce.”

Chanda Kumar ’16 – Baltimore Magazine
Internship description: Designing and editing advertisements

Memorable moment: Seeing an ad that she designed from scratch appear in the magazine

Favorite thing about the internship: “It helped me learn how the office setting works because I’ve never worked in an office this big before. Even though the office is somewhat big, my desk is about two feet away from the Chief Operating Officer's (COO) office, and he knows me by name. It’s so cool.”

Sam Shelton ‘17 – Tote Magazine
Internship description: Editing articles for grammar and style for the digital magazine for young women

Memorable moment: Using her critical eye to help writers figure out how to make a story the best it can be

Favorite thing about the internship: “Tote has very different content from what we produce, [in class] so it’s interesting to think, ‘Is this makeup brand capitalized? Is it just the generic term?’ It’s a whole new set of challenges that I think is really interesting.”