About Ben Snyder

Welcome to Benjamin (Ben) Snyder’s online portfolio and personal blog. A junior at Goucher College, Ben majors in American Studies and Communications. He will be spending the 2011-2012 academic year at Oxford University’s Mansfield College as a recipient of the Mahoney Scholarship granted by the college after a competitive selection process. At Oxford, Ben plans to continue his research on Goucher College’s co-founder and second president, John Franklin Goucher, as a Brooke & Carol Peirce Fellow.  The focus of the paper, which will be a full-fledged thesis, analyzes the college’s commitment to study abroad from its creation beginning with Dr.Goucher’s fascination with Egypt, including the two mummies he brought back to the United States in 1895. Additionally, he will take tutorials in American history, literature, and Egyptology.

Ben’s studies so far include such courses as Writing & Producing for New Media, Feature Writing for Newspapers & Magazines,  Critical Analysis of Journalism, Consumer Culture, the Media & the Environment, Journalism Workshop, the History of Reading & Writing in America, American Literature, Historic Preservation, and others. Through these classes at Goucher and while abroad, Ben will continue to explore his interests in journalism, American media, literature, popular culture, and history.

Along with striving for excellence in the classroom, Ben also holds leadership in his extracurricular activities. He served as the Associate and News Editor for The Quindecim, Goucher College’s independent student newspaper, during his sophomore year and as the Features Editor as a first-year student. At Oxford, Ben will continue to work for The Quindecim as Contributing Editor, while penning a column on his experiences abroad. Click here to visit the newspaper’s website.

Despite being just 19 years old, Ben has taken his passion for journalism to the professional level. He just completed work as Production Assistant at the US Open. This summer here held positions as intern for Tennis.com, Tennis Magazine’s official website as well as for Billie Jean King’s World Team Tennis. In August, Ben traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio to serve as the Official Tournament Reporter for the Western & Southern Open, one of the largest hardcourt events in North America. During the summer of 2010, he worked as an intern for Fortune.com, Fortune Magazine’s official website. After a highly successfully few months, he was asked by the Managing Editor to continue work as  a freelancer for the Time Inc. publication. To view his Fortune.com articles (and others), click here.

With over six years of experience working for various publications, he is a multimedia journalist passionate about covering a wide range of topics, including technology, business, popular culture, lifestyle, education, the environment, and tennis. For examples of his journalistic and academic work, please view his portfolio.

Along with his work as a journalist, Ben plays for Goucher’s Division III Varsity Men’s tennis team. He has played for the past six years and enjoys playing, watching, reading, and writing about the sport. His blog, Tenaciously Tennis, and his contributions to Tennis Served Fresh exemplify outlets for his collection of tennis writing. He hopes to one day travel the world to report about the sport.

Feel free to connect with Ben via Twitter or LinkedIn. Contact directly here for Facebook access at his discretion.