Three UMBC undergraduates will discuss their recent summer internships with Baltimore-area news organizations at a panel discussion on internships October 6. The three students, Amy Segreti, Patrick Tyler and Grant Huang, who are also on the editorial staff of UMBC's Retriever Weekly, will speak at 1 p.m. on the 7th floor of the Albin O. Kuhn Library.

The panel discussion is open to the public and all members of the UMBC community are welcome to attend.

Segreti, a 21-year-old senior from Lakewood, New Jersey, is currently the features editor for the Retriever Weekly. During the past summer she interned at the Baltimore Sun as a reporter on the City Desk.

Joining Segreti will be Patrick Tyler, a senior majoring in English and economics. During the previous summer months, Tyler interned for the Baltimore Sun at its Harford County bureau in his hometown of Bel Air where he covered news ranging from a mustard gas release at the nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground to murder trials. Tyler is the current news editor at the Retriever Weekly.

Also working as an intern last summer was 20-year-old Grant Huang, a resident of Columbia and native of China.Huang, who previously worked for the Baltimore Sun on its City Desk in downtown Baltimore, was a reporter for the Baltimore Messenger, one of the Patuxent Publishing Company's weekly newspapers, part of a chain that covers much of Maryland. Huang, who is currently the assistant features editor at the Retriever Weekly, is a junior majoring in political science with a concentration in international relations.

In summing up his summer internship experience, Huang observed: "Virtually everything I learned about journalism in the real world came from my internship experiences. My internships, one at a large metropolitan daily and one at a small community weekly, gave me a tremendous amount of firsthand experience about the career. I could see the real thing happening: from covering stories to observing office politics to talking casually with industry veterans, I felt thrilled to know that everything I was experiencing wasn't somehow prepared or simulated for my benefit. Myinternships allowed me to network with professional journalists, but more importantly they were the best opportunity I've had to sample that life and career choice without committing to it.”