I began my internship at The Mountain-Ear in May and am now concluding in early September. I’m very grateful for this experience and have enjoyed working on and strengthening my journalistic skills. During my time writing at The Mountain-Ear, I enjoyed learning more about the Peak to Peak region and towns within it.

I’m attending the University of Colorado-Boulder so sometimes it feels like I’m in a college town bubble and being able to share stories about other towns has opened my eyes to more of Colorado. One of the coolest and most rewarding moments I had this summer was when I was in Nederland for a day with my friend and we went to Backcountry Pizza and saw one of my articles in the paper they were selling at the counter!

Along with writing, I enjoyed taking photos at events I was covering and being able to practice journalistic photography. One of the stories I wrote was about the Ned Gravel Race and I attended the beginning and mid-day portions of the race. It was fun visiting and engaging with a community event and sharing pictures from it.

One aspect of the internship that was sometimes challenging for me was figuring out the most important, news-worthy parts of a story and organizing that into a concise but still interesting story. At times it could be overwhelming to figure this out but I’m thankful I got to practice this skill for my writing in the future

Overall, the internship helped me gain real-world experience with journalism and allowed me to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to writing and creating stories. My experience at The Mountain-Ear gave me an excitement about getting out into communities and learning more about the people, their traditions, and sharing it with more people.