It's All About The Story For Maryland Made's Director of Storytelling Kirstin Nichols

The Maryland Made program works to help student-athletes at Maryland further develop themselves professionally and academically while creating relationships and a sense of community outside of the playing field.

Kirstin Nichols first got involved in the program during her freshman year after coming to her dream school to compete on the Track and Field team. 

"I wanted to come to Maryland since I was a sophomore in high school. At the time I was really set on being a journalism major, and I knew Maryland has a really good journalism program, and it's super close to home."

"My freshman year of college, my teammate was the SAAC president so that definitely got it on my mind as a potential thing I might be interested in, in the future. I did think it was cool she was participating in all these different events that I didn't know about otherwise," said Nichols. 

After hearing about Maryland Made, Nichols saw it as a way to make friends and get more involved with the closely-knit community of student-athletes at Maryland. She would then earn a role on the SAAC board, where she became the program's communications liaison. 

"I got involved originally as the communications liaison for the SAAC executive board. I applied to that my freshman year of college. I was really interested in applying because that was the COVID year and I feel like I had gone all year without really getting to meet many people. I viewed it as a way to get to know more Maryland athletes. I was also excited about learning more about the communications and marketing perspective of the field I was in."

Nichols enjoys her involvement as the communications liaison, explaining that it was a way to meet new people and help her develop professionally as she pursues her double degrees in journalism and social data science. 

Since then, Nichols' role in the program has grown. As the program grew, so did the need to convert her role on the SAAC board to a new position to help oversee the communications efforts of the Maryland Made program. 

"My role on the SAAC board evolved into this new position. In strategic communications and marketing, there are a lot of different avenues you can go down and get messages out, and there are a lot of people that want their stories and events shared and promoted. Realizing so much was going into it, we decided to make it a role not only on the SAAC board but overseeing all of the different groups."

"I am the Director of Storytelling for all Maryland Made student-led groups. I attend the weekly communications meeting the Maryland Made staff hold to hear about what's going on in the strategic communications side of Maryland Made. I hear from a lot of the leaders of the different student-led groups like the pre-health Terps, worldwide Terps, and SAAC executive board. I listen to what events they have coming up and any ideas they have for promoting their events."

Something that Nichols has stressed since taking on her new responsibilities as the Director of Storytelling is trying to emphasize the personality and character of the groups that make up Maryland Made, explaining that while it helps you advance yourself professionally, it is also a great place to build relationships and have fun.

"What I'm working on trying to do is showing more personality and character in the group. I feel like when you show one of our groups' characters and the fun things that are going on, more people might be interested in joining"

"It's fun trying to come up with creative ideas we might not have seen as much before to showcase the personality of different groups. That's why I'm trying to do more little mini-mic videos and Instagram reels. That's something we haven't really done before and it showcases a lot of different people."

Through her efforts as the Director of Story Telling, Nichols also wants to help spread the message of Maryland Made, highlighting that the program can be an excellent experience for any student-athlete. 

"To me, the mission of Maryland Made is to support student-athletes in their journey to becoming career professionals and good people, and not just athletes doing a sport. Maryland Made does a good job doing that, honing in our skills outside of our sport, which helps us be more well rounded people. I feel like just by doing communications and trying to get the message out there about all the different groups, my goal is to spread the message about all of the great things that Maryland Made is doing and what student-athletes can gain from participating in different branches of it."

For Nichols personally, the program has allowed her to find a blend between her athletics, schoolwork, and future career goals. As she looks to finish her journalism degree, she sees a lot of overlap in the work that she does for Maryland Made, emphasizing that one of her favorite moments with the program was a social event for a good cause - that also helped her with a project in the classroom."

"My favorite event is normally the adopt a family present wrapping party we have near Christmas time. It's fun because it's near Christmas and we're all getting kind of stressed for finals and it's a nice time to come together and work towards a good cause." 

"Last year I made a video for it, for a journalism class. Sharing it, Maryland Made staff also saw it and that was fun for me that I got to do something for class that also showcased this cool event that we do."

Nichols added that any student-athletes considering joining the program should give it a try, and they will be met with a tightly-knit community and can create memories to last a lifetime. 

"Definitely look into all the different groups that Maryland Made has because there are so many different places to get involved, and it really does help your career and professional development, being in a setting outside of the sport or outside the classroom, just getting to meet different people and work towards a cause that you're interested in. It's also great for meeting different student athletes, because sometimes it's hard to get outside of our own sport. I think Maryland Made opens up some good opportunities for meeting new people."