The LINK internship is a 3-week internship experience that all AHS juniors are required to complete before graduating. Juniors are told to choose a business or company that interests them anywhere in the world. Then, we go to our decided places and become a part of their team for a short period of time.
Project Description
For my project, my mentor and I decided that I would be writing and editing at least 3 stories and having them published in the paper. I ended up having a total of 5 stories published and proofread over 60 pages. I loved every second of it.
Internship Description
For my internship, I went and worked with the Arts & Entertainment editor, Katie Chicklinski-Cahill with The Durango Herald. Over the 3 weeks I was there, I learned lots and got introduced too many new skills and aspects of journalism. I started with proofreading the paper for the next print and did that for the first day while I brainstormed a story. Then over the Course of the next couple days I started writing and completed my first story while also doing miscellaneous things like going with reporters or going with the photographer to a shoot. I continued proofreading and writing and it ended up feeling like the internship was a week long.
Buisness Description
The Durango Herald is a local newspaper company that's been around for more than 100 years. https://www.durangoherald.com
Link Reflection
During my time at The Durango Herald, I had the opportunity to make good use of my people skills and confidence with strangers. I also believe that having an open mentality was very important and I’m glad I was able to go into the internship with one and continue to have that mentality throughout the internship. For example, on my first day, my mentor Katie threw me in the deep end and had me go with a reporter to a Chapter 90 city meeting. It was intimidating being introduced to everyone but I was fortunately able to make good conversation and stayed respectful and positive. One skill that I really developed over the 3 weeks was adapting to a constantly changing work environment. An example of that would be when I was going with the photographer to a shoot when we got an unexpected breaking news story that we both had to go too. We had to adapt and find a way to make it to both shoots and still get the amount of coverage we needed. In the future, I believe The Durango Herald should defiantly keep taking interns from AHS. The community dynamic is similar in the way that everyone talks to everyone and if someone needs some help, their coworkers will try to help even if it's not their primary responsibility.This internship experience was the most beneficial activity I've done in my entire school career. It has made me even more motivated to chase my dreams. I want to be a journalist and this was an amazing opportunity for me to start my career early. If I could go back in time to before choosing my LINK, I wouldn't change anything. I loved this whole experience and hope to continue my path of journalism for a long time.