For some college students, summer jobs are waiting tables or painting houses for extra cash.
However, a select group of college and graduate students ? Baltimore City?s 2006 Mayoral Fellows ? put public service first as they work at real jobs in city agencies for the summer.
“It?s a life-altering experience,” said Nicholas Stewart, 20, a recent University of Maryland graduate and 2006 fellow.
“We?re not like interns making copies; we?re treated like people with lots of potential,” said Stewart, whose duties included writing speeches and answering queries from the media in the mayor?s communications office at City Hall.
The privately funded program pays the students a stipend for a 10-week tour of duty in city government trenches ? $3,500 for undergraduates and $4,500 for graduates. Twenty Fellows were chosen from nearly 100 applicants.
But for the students, money is not the issue.
“I love the city, so I wanted to be involved,” said Amy Costanzo, 26, a University of Baltimore Law School student, who worked in the Mayor?s Office of Neighborhoods.
“My job was [to] target the ?We Buy Houses? signs,” she said. “They make the city look trashy, and the people that run the companies prey on low-income residents.”
Costanzo?s job was to contact the companies that post the signs and inform them they were breaking the law. She met with several offending companies, and the result, Costanzo said, was real progress.
“One of the areas we targeted ? Gywnn Falls ? has been generally clear of the signs,” she said.
Mayoral spokeswoman Raquel Guillory said the Fellows bring new perspectives to city government.
“They?re passionate about the city, they?re passionate about public service, so they bring fresh ideas to city government,” she said.
For Costanzo, working to make city neighborhoods better has only strengthened her preference to live in the city.
“I want to stay here forever,” she said.
