In 1998-99, Thomas Stauffer was awarded a UA/NASA Space Grant Science Writing Internship at the Arizona Daily Star--Arizona's second largest newspaper. This experience led to the career of his dreams. Here is Tom's story:

The NASA Space Grant internship in science writing helped prove to me once and for all that time is not constant. Under the mentorship of Jim Erickson, I wrote more than 80 science stories for the Arizona Daily Star and quickly realized that writing about science was what I really wanted to do. When my internship ended, the Star offered me a part-time job as a police reporter, which expanded to full-time when I graduated in May of 2000. Fast forward to January 2001: Jim has moved on to the Rocky Mountain News, the Star needs a science reporter, and on the basis of my Space Grant experience, I get the job! (Exclamation points are frowned on in the newspaper business but I had to make an exception back there.) Less than two years after my internship began, here I am writing about the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft landing on Asteroid 433 Eros, realizing that as corny as it sounds, time really does fly when you're having fun.