First Day

My name is Mikala Jamison, and I'm a University of Delaware English major with a minor in Journalism. I'll be a reporting intern this summer at the Wilmington News Journal. This is my second internship, my first being with Out&About Magazine in Wilmington, Delaware. I'm excited to see the differences between interning with a magazine and a newspaper.

Today is my first day at the Journal. I came into the office around 9 AM, but hardly anyone else was here--I always come in too early on the first day of a new job--lateness paranoia, I guess. After a few minutes, my internship coordinator, Alison Kepner, showed me around the newsroom and introduced me to a few people. The newsroom is pretty much as I expected it--a sea of desks cluttered with papers, news clippings, and works in progress. She led me to a desk that will be my new home for the summer, and I'm sure it will end up being just as chaotically unorganized as every other one. As of now, I'm waiting for my Features supervisor (I'm working in the Features section of the paper, which is great since I was Features editor in high school and love feature-type stories) named Betsy Price to come in to get me started up.

One of the things I'm excited for here are the "lunch and learns" the interns will be having starting tomorrow. We all gather to have lunch with one of the higher-ups here who guides a discussion on reporting tips and ways to improve our work here. I think it's going to be a great chance to learn a lot.

My only concern is that I won't have enough time here everyday; I'm only "part-time" interning here, because I'm holding two other jobs this summer. I have to leave the Journal at about 2PM each day, which means I do miss out on a chunk of the afternoon. I obviously plan on working as hard as I can while I'm here (and if/when I cover assignments at home and over the weekend) so I don't miss out on any reporting experience I can get.

Alison is going to be introducing me to Betsy and the other interns soon, and I'll be updating on how everything goes. This internship seems like anything but a "go and fetch coffee" experience, so I'm really excited.