Hallie Satre

Major

Journalism and Mass Communication

Company

Scholastic Inc.

Duties

I was an intern for Scholastic's classroom magazines Science World and SuperScience. My duties included preparing story ideas, choosing relevant topics for each issue, writing stories, designing science experiments to include with stories, selecting artwork for the text and editing.

Most Memorable Experience

While learning to be a journalist in New York City is an experience unlike any other, my best experience happened after I returned to Iowa. Both my mom and my older brother are science teachers, and their students read Scholastic publications.

This gave me the opportunity to receive feedback from readers about my work in the published magazines. It was rewarding to hear about the students in their classrooms reading articles I wrote. It was also interesting to hear how the students reacted to what they learned.

Special Contribution

When designing science experiments for feature stories, I used several methods to obtain information about how useful the experiments would be. First, I made sure the information in the experiments was factual and intriguing to students.

Then, I made sure the experiments were easy for teachers to perform. In many cases this required me to speak with experts in the particular field of science and to consult with science teachers about how the experiment would work in their classrooms. On many occasions I played the part of a science student myself to see what the experiment taught me and if would be a valuable use of my time.

Advice to Future Interns

No matter what it is you are working on, do it with gusto. Be passionate about your interests and activities. The things you do to put on your resume should not be treated as "resume builders" because once you leave campus, those words on the page become just that- words on a page. It is your job to be able to explain why you do what you do, what you have learned, and how you will use the skills you have acquired.