MC Alumna’s Persistence Leads to News Role at Telemundo
Ashley Neyra used to watch Telemundo with her parents as a child. Growing up in Montgomery County as the daughter of Peruvian immigrants, they would watch the Spanish-language news together. Now, her journey is coming full circle as she starts a position as a digital news intern at Telemundo 44 new window for the remainder of the academic year.
Her father cried when she told her parents the news.
“I knew you'd make it, I’m so proud of you,” she remembers him saying.
She is set to graduate debt-free from Montgomery College and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), where she will earn her journalism degree from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in spring 2027.
But Neyra didn’t always know that journalism would be her path. After graduating from Watkins Mill High School as a student in the Achieving Collegiate Excellence and Success (ACES) new window program, she enrolled at Montgomery College as a nursing major and a first-generation student.
Nursing turned out to not be the right fit, and neither did business. But she fell in love with communications, and soon immersed herself in media by serving as a MC Voices contributor and advancing to editor-in-chief of The Globe new window, MC’s Germantown Campus student newspaper. These platforms allowed her to hone her voice, explore photojournalism and build lifelong friendships with peers and mentors alike.
“MC Voices gave me an opportunity to write as a student without feeling filtered,” Neyra said. “I was so grateful for my experience, the friends I made and the teachers who helped me grow personally and academically.”
In 2024, Neyra earned her associate’s degree in photography and a second degree in general studies from MC. But she faced the unexpected challenge of imposter syndrome after transferring.
“My first year was really hard,” she reflected. “I had never sat in a classroom and been the only Latina. It took some adjustments to say, ‘No, I belong here, I earned my spot,’ and to realize that I’m just as talented as everyone else in the room.”
Turning those feelings into action, Neyra reestablished the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) student chapter at UMD, serving as its president and creating a vital community for Latino students across media, communications and film disciplines. The experience deepened her pride in her heritage.
“Going to UMD made me embrace my culture even more. I realized how much my roots formed who I am and how unique my experiences are,” she said. “It made me want to work harder to bring out those stories in the community.”
While at UMD, she has also been involved with La Voz Latina and The Diamondback. Along the way, she built an impressive résumé—a photojournalism internship at the Tampa Bay Times, earning the NAHJ Rubén Salazar Scholarship and a digital storytelling fellowship with Montgomery Community Media, where she served as lead cinematographer for the award-winning short documentary, “The Emcees of MC.”
Neyra's career trajectory is a testament to her persistence. After four years of applying to NBC and Telemundo internship programs while navigating college, her dedication bore fruit when the offer finally came.
As a rising Latina journalist, she hopes her journey encourages current and prospective Montgomery College students who may feel uncertain about navigating career paths.