Ten communications students will spend their spring semesters studying on Northwestern’s main campus in Evanston, but several journalism juniors still do not have definite assignments for their required journalism residencies, said program administrators and students.

“It’s worrying because it’s so late in the semester,” said Reem Zubaidi, a journalism junior who is still waiting to hear about her residency placement. “The idea of not getting into the place I want is scary. Having to choose something other than your first choice and re-adjusting accordingly would be tough.”

But Senior Associate Dean Richard Roth, who oversees the journalism residency program, said that “most or all of those placements will be confirmed by Sunday.”

Roth said NU-Q is trying to send all students to their first-choices but faces problems this year because many media outlets have changed their policies on recruiting interns. In addition, the number of students going on residencies this year has doubled over last year, he said.

In the communications program, students studying in Evanston include Menatalla Kamel, Tulip Al Muhtaseb, Jaser Alagha, Soud Al Boinin, Ibrahim Al-Hashmi, Hassan Asif, Zahed Bata, Mohammed Buhmaid, Nissryne Dib and Farida Zahran. They will leave for the U.S. on January 1 and return mid-June.

The Daily Q has learned that the following journalism residencies were confirmed as of December 5: Amna Al Majid and Mahdiyeh Mahmoodzadeh to Washington, D.C. for the Qatar Foundation International; Aamena Ahmed to Austin, TX for the Texas Tribune and Amna El Saka to Springfield, IL to the State Journal-Register.

Gena El Aker will be in New York for the PR firm Brown Lloyd James while Maha Al-Ansari will join her there at Sports Illustrated magazine. Jaimee Haddad and Penny Wang will be based in Boston, working respectively for PRI (Public Radio International) and Boston Globe.com.

In Western Europe, Abir Bouguerra and Marium Saeed will be at Euronews in Lyons, France; Alanna Alexander will be in Dublin, working at the website Her.ie; in London Aisha Al Misned is working at Red Public Relations and Amna Al Saadi is working at Quiller Consultancy.

Sara Al Mohannadi is working at Exxon Mobil in PR.

These students will leave for their residencies in mid-February after a four-week course in Media Law and Ethics.

Other students, including Reem Zubaidi, Haneen Hindi, Angel Polacco, Usama Alony, Ardinny Razania, Mahgoub Abdelrahman, Mai Akkad and Asma Ajroudi are waiting for their residencies to be confirmed.

On the other hand, communication students have also voiced concerns over the lack of communication with NU-Q regarding the exchange program with Evanston.

“I have heard that some students were upset that they could not go on the exchange, but all those who met the criteria that we sent out were eventually accepted,” told Scott Curtis, director of communication program at NU-Q.