Hello Spartanburg Spark Community: I am your new intern!

A few weeks ago, Lucas Patterson of Root Magazine called me to see if we could use an intern, since Root itself is in hiatus at the moment, and he’d been approached by a USC-Upstate professor about taking one on. At first, I thought he was kidding, because the Spark is, at this point at least, a glorified blog. But he wasn’t. So, after a few e-mails and a phone conversation, I met with the potential intern. For her first official action as intern, I’ve asked Petre’se Kennedy to tell all of you a little about who she is, what she’s doing, and how on Earth she ended up interning for the Spark. — Steve

Hello everyone. My name is Petre’se and I am currently interning for SpartanburgSpark.com. I’m a USC-Upstate graduate with a BA in Communications.

Well, it is interesting how I was lead to the Spark. I relocated to Spartanburg a few years ago to attend school, graduating from Spartanburg Methodist College in 2005 with my AA in Journalism. From there I transferred, while working diligently, to USC-Upstate to receive my BA in Communications (Journalism) in May 2008.

To my shock and dismay, because of the economic downturn I was unable and still am unable to find a job in the journalism field. My next option, other than mass mailing my resume (some of you may have gotten it eight times already!) was signing up for every temp agency in Spartanburg county, and a few in Greenville.

With that kind of future ahead of me, I made the split-second decision to go back to school!

I’m registered to work as a substitute teacher and just recently found a job, which is temporary — but hey, it is a job! Hopefully you will never be unfortunate enough to see the unemployment line at 8 a.m. along Church Street, or the massive crowd at the Department of Social Services for food stamps and other aide at 7 a.m. It will truly touch your heart. It’s definitely true that whoever said, “growing up isn’t easy,” was telling the truth through and through!

Back to my academic venture: Due to substitute teaching on a PRN basis, limited funds to be able to afford going to Converse College for my Masters degree, I chose to go back to USC-Upstate for my second BA, this time in English. I will finish within a year. I love to stay productive so while in pursuit of this, I will be going for Teacher’s certification in order to teach English. I do see tremendous need for more educators in the Spartanburg County School System.

After registering for all my classes as a late-admittance student, struggling with financial aide for over a week after class started (did you know you have to appeal through financial aide to go back to school if you already have a Bachelors degree?), etc. I FINALLY got things straight, accepted, and was lead to the Spark as an intern!

Be prepared to be hearing a lot from me and I want to hear from you!