San Mateo resident Kathryn Miyahira found perfect fit at St. Michael's College in Vermont, interning in video

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Kathryn Miyahira interns in video this summer at Saint Michael's College

COLCHESTER, VT (07/03/2013)(readMedia)-- "The school itself was a perfect fit," said Kathryn Miyahira, a rising sophomore at Saint Michael's College in Burlington, Vermont, where she landed a summer internship making videos to show future students what the college is like.

The daughter of Patricia Tobin and Frank Miyahira of San Mateo, Ms. Miyahira is a rising sophomore, Spanish language and Media Studies, Journalism and Digital Arts double major. She graduated from Aragon High School in San Mateo before coming east to college in New England. Saint Michael's is located in Burlington, Vermont, one of the top 10 college towns in America.

"There is so much to do here-volunteer service, skiing, wilderness program-things I've not done before," she said. But the internship in the Saint Michael's Marketing Department is her focus this summer.

She has been researching how colleges handle blogs, the online individually created statements from students, faculty and staff, often hosted on a college's official website. She surveyed some 15 to 20 competitors of Saint Michael's and came to the conclusion that Saint Michael's lively blogs would be more effective if they were all presented on a unified format, and then personalized through color and content.

Ms. Miyahira has also been researching various kinds of social media that could be used by Saint Michael's for marketing purposes, things like a vine, apps for iPhones, Instagram, and more.

Extracurricular life at Saint Michael's took her to Sandy relief work

During the school year, Ms. Miyahira has gotten involved in a number of activities including going on wilderness hikes, performing in a musical through the drama club, going on a campus-ministry sponsored retreat, and doing an extended service trip over spring break. The trip took a group of Saint Michael's students to Union Beach, New Jersey, where they helped the community hard hit by Hurricane Sandy.

"It was an amazing experience," she said. "I've never seen such destruction. The retreat house where we stayed was standing, but everything outside was destroyed-the nearby houses, the gazebo was gone....it reminded you how lucky you are and how much you need to help others."

Making videos for her internship

She hopes to go on another service trip during the coming year, perhaps to the Dominican Republic, one of the places Saint Michael's takes student volunteers. In the meantime, Ms. Miyahara is working hard in her internship, making videos for the college YouTube platform. The videos are designed to give incoming students a glimpse of what life will be like when they get to Saint Michael's. The current video focuses on the college's organic garden, where students both learn to garden and produce vegetables that they sell on campus.

About Saint Michael's

At Saint Michael's College www.smcvt.edu  students are challenged to do their best, find their niche, take on opportunities to grow, and immerse themselves in academic pursuits. Intellectual rigor, compassion, teamwork, caring-these characterize a Saint Michael's experience. A residential Catholic college, Saint Michael's is steeped in the social justice spirit of its founding priests, the Edmundites. Saint Michael's is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top 10 college towns. Headed by President John J. Neuhauser, the college has 1,900 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. Identified by the Princeton Review, 2013 as one of the nation's Best 377 Colleges, and included in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2013, Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Goldwater, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2013 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

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