1. 6/8/2016 Enchantment with meteorology opens doors for national scholarship winner - Ball State University
http://cms.bsu.edu/news/articles/2016/5/enchantment-with-meteorology-opens-doors-for-national-scholarship-winner 1/2
Enchantment with meteorology opens doors for national scholarship
winner
Topics: , ,College of Sciences and Humanities College of Communication Information and Media Scholarships
May 12, 2016
Amanda Kedzierski remembers falling in love with meteorology.
She was a Pittsburgh-‐‑area first-‐‑grader who won a contest to have lunch with a local TV
weather forecaster. He was explaining how he breaks in during programming with the
latest reports of severe weather.
“I was immediately awed by his job and thought that is what I wanted to do,” said the
Ball State sophomore.
A prestigious scholarship could be moving Kedzierskiʼ’s childhood wonder closer to a
career.
The major with a is one of 125 sophomores nationwide
this year — and only the third Ball State student ever — to receive the Ernest F. Hollings
Scholarship, given out to students who intend to pursue careers in oceanic and atmospheric science.
geography meteorology focus
Kedzierski will get stipends during her junior and senior years and a paid 10-‐‑week summer internship next year at a facility run by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which administers the scholarship.
“It was an incredible experience simply to apply for the award,” said Kedzierski. “I had to write an essay, which went through several rounds of
rewrites thanks to the input of faculty from the English department and (Ball Stateʼ’s director of national and international
scholarships and Honors Fellow). It was worth it.”
Barb Stedman
NewsLink Indiana was the starting point
Kedzierski will carry dreams of working for the National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA, as she travels to Silver Spring, Maryland, late
this summer to participate in a one-‐‑week orientation that will let her select the type of internship she will have in summer 2017.
But sheʼ’s no novice. For a while, she has been putting a to use by filing daily weather
reports during the online noon newscast for Ball Stateʼ’s NewsLink Indiana.
telecommunications minor
“Without a doubt, that internship will give me a lot of experience to hone my skills.
“Iʼ’ve only been doing the noon forecasts for several months now, but itʼ’s been extremely challenging. Sure, we
have all the models right there, thanks to the various news services, but itʼ’s up to me to come up with the right
forecast for this area.”
NewsLink Indiana is Ball Stateʼ’s student-‐‑run, Emmy Award-‐‑winning newscast. Participants learn to anchor, edit,
produce, report, shoot and write while they start to build a work portfolio.
“I am lucky to be in a place like Ball State with its amazing facilities,” Kedzierski said. “When I was looking at a
college, my parents and I were blown away by the Unified Media Lab in the Art and Journalism Building as well as
the great faculty. I would have never won that scholarship without coming to Ball State.”
Multiple talents impress faculty
Amanda Kedzierski will spend 10 weeks next year interning
at a facility run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). But before then, she will spend part
of her summer with Ball State's storm-‐‑chasing team.
“When I was
looking at a
college, my parents
and I were blown
away by the Unified
Media Lab in the
Art and Journalism
Building as well as
the great faculty. I
would have never
won that
scholarship without
coming to Ball

2. 6/8/2016 Enchantment with meteorology opens doors for national scholarship winner - Ball State University
http://cms.bsu.edu/news/articles/2016/5/enchantment-with-meteorology-opens-doors-for-national-scholarship-winner 2/2
Kedzierski is also a member of the , and her talents in the pool and the
classroom have caught the attention of many of her faculty. , assistant chair of
telecommunications, was impressed with her from the start of a media law course he taught.
womenʼ’s swimming and diving team
Michael Spillman
“The class doesn't always bring out the best in every telecommunications major or minor, but that wasn't true of Amanda,” he said. “From her
first day in the class, she was engaged, asking and answering questions. It was evident right away that she was on top of the material, and she
earned one of the top grades in the class.
“When I found out she also was a Ball State swimmer, I wasnʼ’t surprised. My experience over the years with swimmers in my classes is that
theyʼ’re disciplined. And that describes Amanda. Weʼ’ll see her in a few years forecasting weather.”
Next stop, the Great Plains
Kedzierski will participate in the universityʼ’s , an
, in late May. Led by meteorology professor , Ball State students will travel
by van from Indiana to as far west as Wyoming and then down through Texas in an effort to
track major storms developing on the Great Plains.
storm-‐‑chasing project immersive learning
experience David Call
Call believes Kedzierski will be a strong addition to the team due to her time management and
leadership skills learned as an intercollegiate athlete.
“She is an outstanding student, completing most of the math and physics courses ahead of
schedule,” he said. “Intercollegiate athletics entails 20 hours of work per week and requires that
she miss class occasionally for meets and other events. When she did miss my class, she was
proactive in turning in assignments early, coordinating group work around her schedule so her
classmates could still benefit from her contributions and making arrangements to get notes
and keep pace.”
Like her fellow students, Kedzierski will post videos and photos via social media to keep friends and family up-‐‑to-‐‑date with the experience.
“This is going to be an incredible experience for someone really new to the field,” she said. “In Indiana, the storms are much smaller, but on the
Great Plains they can cover large areas and spawn high winds, large hail and dangerous tornadoes. Itʼ’s a meteorologistʼ’s dream.”
By Marc Ransford, Senior Media Strategist
”State.
—
sophomore geography major
Amanda Kedzierski
.
Kedzierski's talents as a student, as well as a
member of the women's swimming and diving
team, impress many of her professors and helped
her secure the Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship
Explore geography
Ball State's Department of Geography offers a world of academic opportunities, with bachelor's degrees in comprehensive
geography, travel and tourism, geographic information science, and meteorology and climatology. The department also
offers minors in those subjects, a master's degree, and graduate certificates.
.Learn more about the geography programs