Times Have Changed Since College (except for the bad parking)
This past week, I was a guest speaker at a public relations course at St. John’s University, which also happens to be my undergrad alma mater. It was the first time I stepped foot on campus since I graduated in ‘98. In fact, the classroom I spoke in was housed in a gorgeous new academic center that used to be a lawn. It made me realize that some things are still the same (like the bad parking!), but mostly, times have changed.
When I was a college senior nine years ago, for instance, doing an internship was hardly a given. Not all students did them, and the ones who did, chose to as an excuse to take less classes. Lucky for me, I took the “easy” route and decided to intern for a small publishing company just down the road from campus above a strip mall. It was sort of related to my major — English — and I figured it was more interesting than taking some goofy elective like Astronomy or Medieval Archeology. The last thing I wanted to become, however, was the intern cliche, swimming in a sea of file folders, coffee filters, and band-aids from all the paper cuts. Hence why I figured a small company would be my best shot at getting some good experience under my belt.
So low and behold, I went to my internship 12 hours a week as my school required, and to my surprise, I learned so much. It was the first time I saw this new computer thing that made a gurgly fax machine noise called “the Internet” (yes, I’m serious!). I also handwrote my first article, and typed it into the company’s one computer while the other employees went out to lunch, and it eventually resulted in my first published byline.
As my internship progressed, I slowly realized I was hooked on seeing my name in print, and I wanted to be a journalist, a writer, and an editor. I graduated that May, but kept writing articles for my internship editor — some of which I was paid like $50 for. I was so ecstatic about all the extra income! As I’ve said, times have changed.
All these years later, that small publishing company is not so small anymore. They’ve relocated from the strip mall to a corporate office building, have a way larger staff, and everyone even has their own computer. Including me! That’s right — the internship that got me out of Intro to Woodworking, turned out to be where I’ve made my career home for the last nine years. I’ve grown along with The CollegeBound Network (and thankfully, they pay me now!).
What does this all mean for you, readers? Let’s extract some lessons:
- Don’t always go with the crowd. Had I taken Marine Biology for English Majors instead of testing the waters of a possible career path, I may never have discovered my affinity for journalism. To that end, had I listened to my college advisor and majored in business, I’d be punching numbers into spreadsheets right now — which is great if you’re good at that sort of thing, but I’m definitley not. And while it’s perfectly OK and quite common to change careers a few times over the course of your working life, it’s so much easier when you nail it the first time, don’tcha think?
- Decide what you love to do, and get good at it. Before I officially considered myself a journalist, I felt I needed to get some formal training, meet people in the field, and choose the right track for me. So before I went full-time with CollegeBound, I pursued my master’s degree in journalism at NYU to really hone the craft, and I realized my preference for magazines over newspapers in the process. Plus, it opened up a world of industry events and opportunities — in fact, I’m going to a media lecture for alumni next week. Which brings me to my next point…
- Build career relationships. You never know from whom your next job offer will come. Whether you intern for someone, meet at an industry trade show, or take classes, stay in touch with former employers, colleagues, professors, and classmates. Inevitably, networking is almost always how people land their dream positions.
- Change with the times. I wish I could travel back to ‘98 to tell myself to get in on the ground floor of that weird “Internet” thing. Oh well… But I did have the sense to keep up with technology and it’s a good thing. My print journalism career has completely transformed to a Web-based, blogging, HTML-ing one. And, well, the Internet basically runs my whole working life.
It goes to show that although times change, and campuses and companies grow, everything eventually comes full circle. Even if that circling happens to take place in a crowded college parking lot.