An Introduction

To me...

Logic would indicate that if you're reading this, you have a fairly good idea of who I am - at least in terms of the basics. You'd know that my name is Courtney. That I'm from Indiana and am going to school at DePauw University - where I'm a senior. You'd be able to guess that I'm 21. You might know that I'm an English Writing Major - with minors in Sociology and History. That I want to get into Journalism. That The DePauw is my favorite thing about going to school in Greencastle. You could probably tell someone that college has been terrible and wonderful for me. You could mumble about Delta Zeta and perhaps boast of a few of my good times. If you really knew me, you'd be able to determine that my friends are my heroes. I love my family, both immediate and extended. I've been truly blessed in life - not that I haven't been through m share of disappointments and failures, I have. But I've come out on top, I think.

If you didn't know any of that...well then you probably stumbled onto this by accident. So, hi there. Welcome and feel free to read on to get to know me - or not.

To the Program...

The most important thing that you should know about me is that I'm spending the first semester of my last year at DePauw not at DePauw. I'll be in Washington D.C. as a part of Boston University's Journalism Internship Program. Yes - I'll be in D.C. through Boston via DePauw.

I'll be taking 16 credit hours - 4 credits for you DPU folks. Four of the credit hours will be spent taking a Political Reporting course. Four will be spent as an intern for the Washington Bureau of The Columbus Dispatch. The other 8 are spent...well...I'm not quite sure exactly. It's a course called "Newsroom" and from what I can gather from the program's Web site, I'll be writing newsclips and there's a chance the clips will make into some fairly prestigious New England papers:

"Directed Study in Print and Broadcast-Newsroom. Advanced newsroom training in
writing and reporting political and public affairs news for publication and broadcast. Students cover Congress and the federal government three days a week for the Boston University Washington News Service and its news media clients throughout New England. Students serve as the Washington correspondent for a particular news outlet and work closely with its editors proposing story ideas, carrying out assignments and filing on deadline. Students typically earn 20-30 bylined clips."

Either way - it's writing and collecting clips for that ever-so-daunting process of shipping out my resume to any/all interested area newspapers. So that's it for academics!

As far as logistics go, I'm staying in The Washington Center where I'll be living with five other people in an apartment that has a kitchen, bathroom, 3 bedrooms (gulp...I'll have a roommate again!). I won't be bringing my car (I get that question a lot) because I am afraid of D.C. drivers.

Some other fun facts about the experience:
- One of my friends from high school who goes to a different university is also going to be in this program - though not for journalism, for politics - so I'll have a face from home there too!
- One of my best friends - and E.I.C. of The DePauw for the spring semester - lives in Northern Virginia and will be a mere Metro ride away if I ever need anything. Plus...she's one of my favorite people and getting to spend the semester with her...and others...is going to be fantastic.

To the Blog...
The whole point of the blog - in case you hadn't gathered by now - is to update everyone on my time in D.C. I'll do my best to post clips of mine (assuming I have some and they are accessible from the net), update you on what I'm doing/experiencing and basically chronicle my time off campus. The idea behind the blog is that I'm much more likely to take the time to write a blog than I am to sit down and write an email. Plus you can always check to see new things I've posted. If I were the type to take pictures, I'd post them here. I'm not - but maybe D.C. will change that.

What it boils down to is that if you want to know what I'm up to - this is the place to find out!

With that...enjoy the blog and feel free to leave comments!