Rider University's Brittney Cadott Lands Internship with American Cheerleader Magazine

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Brittney Cadott '11, third from right, had the chance to meet stars from the reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ (05/05/2011)(readMedia)-- Rider University Communication major Brittney Cadott of Manasquan, NJ, recently had the chance to blend her interests in multimedia, cheerleading and fashion when she landed an internship with American Cheerleader Magazine.

Since the age of 7, Cadott has been involved with the sport, competing as an all-star cheerleader in high school, and for the past four years, she has cheered on the Rider squad. She always wanted to pursue a career that coincided with her love for cheerleading. When she saw the multimedia internship opportunity at the magazine this past January, she knew she had to apply.

Cadott began her internship on February 1 and was surprised to learn how small the staff was for a magazine that has a more than a million readers. There were four editors in the editorial department and three staff members in the advertising department. However, she soon learned the value of interning for a small staff, and followed the advice of Scott Alboum, video technologies coordinator, and Dr. AJ Moore, assistant professor of Journalism and internship director - to be invaluable and proactive.

"That's exactly what I did. I took initiative and people remembered me," Cadott said.

Since there was no multimedia editor at the time, Cadott was placed at a desk among the four other editors. There, she edited videos and managed the magazine's Facebook and Twitter accounts. Cadott said the experience was eye-opening. She relied heavily on the skills she had acquired from her classes, including Advanced Publication Design, as well as programs, such as Final Cut Pro and CS5.

"The internship opened my eyes to a lot of abilities that I have," explained Cadott, who would commute to the magazine's office in New York City three days a week.

In late April, Cadott flew out to Los Angeles with the magazine's staff, where she worked on the sets of photo shoots for the upcoming July/August issue. Cadott and the staff also had the chance to meet Keeping up with the Kardashians reality stars Kris Jenner and Kendall Jenner when they visited the Jenner House to unveil Kendall's cover issue. E! filmed the unveiling because it was Kendall's first solo cover. The issue featuring the high school cheerleader hit newsstands on May 3.

While it was exciting to meet the reality stars, Cadott said it was even more satisfying to see Kendall's reaction to the finished product that she had worked on.

"I assisted in picking the double cover of Kendall with the editors. I pulled art to be used in the issue itself. I did the behind the scenes work of the editors to drive the issue to publish. Whatever task big or small they needed done I did. I was no ordinary intern," Cadott said. "When I was out in Hollywood, people involved with the shoots not from American Cheerleader thought I was the media editor not the intern."

To read the full story and to see the E! segment, go to http://www.rider.edu/news/2011/05/05/all-star-opportunity