Lauren Mitchell could become a case study for how to successfully navigate the demands of college life.
She also could serve as a reminder, especially to her fellow HBCU colleagues, that it is important to take advantage of every learning opportunity your university offers while also learning to believe in yourself, although every once and a while you might need a little nudge from a friend.
Mitchell, a North Carolina A&T State University journalism major, has been awarded a summer 2021 internship at The Washington Post, which is consistently ranked as one of the nation’s top newspapers.
A senior from Madison, N.C., she is the only student from a historically Black college or university included in the class of 30 interns, who will serve in roles ranging from reporters and photographers to social media editors and audio producers. Mitchell will work as an audience producer in the unit known as Emerging News Products.
“It still doesn’t feel like it’s real,” Mitchell, 21, said. She and other interns are slated to receive stipends that far exceed minimum wage as they work on site in DC this summer and could possibly be retained as full-time employees.
“I’m really excited for the fantasy of all of it, the possibility of living there,” she added.
Mitchell’s selection as a Post intern is impressive by any measure, but her personal circumstances make it even more so. The first in her mother’s family to attend college, she works 20 hours a week as a Resident Assistant; puts in equally as much time as managing editor of The A&T Register, the campus newspaper, without getting paid; and she has maintained a 3.5 cumulative grade point average as she nears completion of her degree in May. Add to that the fact that she almost talked herself out of applying for the internship.
