What is Ulster BOCES?
Kate Gill

Ulster BOCES means different things to different people.

To Kathryn “Kate” Gill, a staff reporter with the Daily Freeman, Ulster BOCES means having the opportunity to explore a career in journalism while receiving valuable hands-on experience in an internship program.

Initially interested in becoming a broadcast journalist, Kate had never really given any thought to anything else until she heard about the Ulster BOCES New Visions Communications Careers Exploration program the summer after her junior year in high school. “I attended an introductory program and thought it seemed interesting and exciting,” recalls Kate. “The woman who conducted the orientation session, Marjorie Leopold, was very dynamic and enthusiastic. She came from a journalism and documentary background and she seemed like a really strong woman that I’d like to emulate in my career. I thought she would be a wonderful person to learn from. ”

Kate was so impressed with the session, that in 2000, she enrolled in the New Visions Communications program and began classes in the fall of her senior year with Leopold at the Career & Technical Center in Port Ewen. “Through the program, I got the opportunity to work at WRNN-TV in Kingston and saw how things were run. I also had the opportunity to work at the Saugerties Post Star newspaper. I can remember the first article they assigned to me while I was a New Visions student; I had to cover a village board meeting. It was my first article in print and I was so thrilled!”

That was when Kate knew what she wanted to do. “I felt like television news didn’t go in-depth enough. It didn’t really explore the issues at a level I thought would be satisfying. The New Visions program put me out in the field to experience the different jobs and that’s what makes this program so valuable. It opened up a whole new career field that I hadn’t even considered doing. New Visions really helped me to ultimately decide to pursue a career in print journalism.”

Kate really enjoyed the hands-on aspect of the program. “I liked working in the field. It was really neat to be working at the Post Star. Even though I was only 17 years old, I was given a lot of freedom to come up with my own story to pitch to the editors, and then I got to see the stories in the newspaper. It was really very exciting.”

The flexibility is another aspect Kate enjoyed. “New Visions is more of an adult environment than high school. I was given more responsibility. Also, I think one of the most valuable things about the program is that it gives high school students internship experiences so when you go on to college, you can build on that and obtain even better internships because of your previous experience. College internships are very competitive; having the internship experience through the Ulster BOCES New Visions program gives you an edge over the other students vying for the same college internships.”

Upon her graduation in 2001 from Kingston High School and the Ulster BOCES New Visions Communications program, Kate began classes at SUNY Ulster. While attending college, Kate also worked part-time at Overlook Press in Woodstock and became a correspondent for the Daily Freeman. After Kate graduated with an associate’s degree in liberal arts, she took some time off from school to be a nanny for the New York Times journalist Rivka Tadjer. “Hearing about what she’d done, who she interviewed, and the incredible people she met, I was even more interested in writing.”

After a year, Kate returned to academia and attended Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, graduating in 2005 with her bachelor’s degree in English with an emphasis on writing. Returning to Ulster County, Kate contacted her former editor at the Daily Freeman and, in December 2005, was hired as a full-time junior staff reporter, a job she truly enjoys.

“I really like working at the Daily Freeman,” claims Kate, who is the paper’s educational reporter. “I cover a variety of stories. I also have a lot of freedom to pursue my own stories. My job also allows me to be creative. It’s something new everyday. I really enjoy that. I think the New Visions Communications program helped prepare me for my job at the Freeman better than going to college because of the experience of working with so many types of people—for a journalist, one of the keys to success is knowing how to relate to and talk with people of all ages in all fields. New Visions gave me the confidence to do my job—I can go up to someone like the mayor and talk with him. I’m definitely more confident now.”

Attending graduate school is one of Kate’s future goals. “I think being a journalist made me look at learning in a new way. My perspective is different now. I love to write creatively. I want to stay with journalism and see where that takes me.”

Kate credits much of her success in the field to Ulster BOCES. “Ulster BOCES means opportunity. That’s what it was for me—a great opportunity—one I’m so glad I took.”