Hearing the news came as a shock to Kate initially, "obviously I was amazingly excited, because I thought there's always that thing when you do the interview, oh I didn't say this or I didn't say that or why didn't I say this. It's a fabulous opportunity. I think I was in shock for the first two hours!"

"So the fact that the Community Broadcasting Association has this is pretty cool!"

Esther Blank is a correspondent for German radio, TV and magazines and she is Deutsche Welle's official representative in Australia. Esther has interviewed all of the candidates for the internship and explains here what qualities are sought in a Deutsche Welle intern. "We do not train beginners. At Deutsche Welle in Bonn highly qualified community radio volunteers learn to become professionals." She said. "Applicants for the DW internship are carefully selected. They have to be committed community radio broadcasters, they have to have a university degree and they have to submit some of their radio work to demonstrate their ability as radio journalists. They also have to show an interest in European and German current affairs and culture. They have to be able to speak and understand German, or to successfully finish a German course at the Goethe Institute before they can leave for Germany. A couple of other languages might also come in handy." Esther also added that "this year the applicants were of an even higher standard than in the years before. It is amazing."

Kate wasn't entirely happy with her interview for the position though, but was confident that she had the right attributes, "There was a question about how do you feel about going from community radio to a professional organisation? I was like, that won't be a problem; and afterwards I thought the work I do and a lot of people do in community radio is highly professional and you do the best you can with the resources and the equipment that you've got in community radio and I felt like, well it is professional and I felt that I had lowered the status of community radio. I thought why did say that, people put in a lot of time and effort to produce quality product."

"I thought I met the criteria. I've got tertiary studies, I'm enrolled in a graduate diploma of journalism, I've lived in Europe for over six years, I speak fluent German, speak other languages, studied Art history and Italian at University and did six months at University in Norway. So in terms of historical and contemporary understanding of politics, religion, whatever, you can pretty well tick those boxes!"

Kate thinks she'll feel very much at home with DW, "I think that my strengths are suited to European broadcasting. I've lived there, I know it and in Australia people don't care that you speak languages; in Europe it's an advantage. A lot of the stories I've done for community broadcasting have tendered to cover European issues, so I think I'll be better utilized by DW than I would by someone like the ABC."

Kate's nervous about starting, but delighted by what awaits her, "Deutsche Welle is a massive organisation to work within... I mean you can't even contemplate the size of DW and the size of the journalistic machine that it is, to work within that kind of organisation will be fascinating! To see how it operates, how they make decisions, how political it is, what gets shown, what doesn't get shown, how they work. They have so many language departments as well, kind of like SBS, but on mass; which I think is always really good."

Having been born, lived and worked in the Pilbara in North West, Western Australia, Kate isn't fazed by any situations she may find herself in, " you work in Port Hedland, you can survive anywhere." While her parents in Perth are planning her next career move already, "Dad's like; now you can work for the BBC and I said, I don't want to work for the BBC."

"The plan was to move to Sydney, last year I was applying for radio journalism job and not getting interviews and I was a bit miffed about that; so I thought maybe I have to start studying? You look a bit more legitimate and interested when you have a job. I thought I'd move to Sydney and study and if the move takes me elsewhere then I'll study by correspondence. I always had in my head that I wouldn't stay in Sydney that I'd go wherever the work took me" says Kate.

Mia Lauze is a former successful Deutsche Welle intern who now works as CBOnline Content Manager at the CBAA, "I think the DW experience is absolutely invaluable for journalists who have been involved in community broadcasting in Australia for a number of reasons. For one, the people there really appreciate the 'can do' attitude that community broadcasters get from having to work with limited resources. As a result they are willing to give interns a lot of responsibility and let them be involved in interesting projects pretty much from the outset. And that's on top of having the opportunity to be immersed in European culture and politics - something which is extremely useful when you come back home."

Kate believes that while journalists are thought of as being akin to lawyers and used car salesman in the credibility and integrity stakes here that the general public's apathy won't apply in Europe.

"People that I know, are journalists in Europe and they are respected by their friends and others. The attitude that Australians have towards journalists is some tabloid exposes. I think -and this is a randomly gross generalisation- the level of social and political awareness in Europe seems to be higher than here. In the general populous (in Europe) the education is history heavy, cultural heavy and politically heavy, even at school. There's an awareness of their position in a world scale, so there seems to be a lot more social activity, people protest about things, there's a lot more social activity, people talk to you on buses about political opinions, so I think if you've got that level of interest in issues and knowing information, then the journalist maybe has a role to play in that!"

So what will be the issues that Kate is keen to follow and her expectations at the moment?

Kate's future plans after the DW Internship is complete are simple at this stage, "continue work as a journalist, hopefully at SBS, come back to Sydney -because it's the heart of media in Australia- and it's got a beach!"

The future of the Mike Thompson - Deutsche Welle Internship also looks bright as Esther says "All our Mike Thompson/DW Interns were great. We get interns from all over the world. But the Australians were the best so far!"