The Great Internship Hunt
Any college student who does not
get have an internship would get chills reading that phrase.
I am currently sitting in the
office of my non-internship job listening to my boss talk to a lifeguard (I am
a deck supervisor at a YMCA, among other things). This lifeguard is only in high school, but my
boss started talking to him about college and popped the million dollar
question: What are you gonna do with the rest of your life. He is happily telling her about his plans for
chemical engineering (did I mention Rockhurst now offers engineering? Maybe I’ll recruit this kid).
But somewhere along the line in
college that “this is what I want to do with my life” spiel turns into “how the
heck do I make that happen?” And one of
the first major steps on that path is getting a good internship, which can be a
daunting process. During my junior year
I decided I should keep any eye out for any good opportunities, with plans to
go after a more serious publishing internship at Andrew McMeel in Kansas City
senior year. Luckily, English professors
are constantly sending out emails to all English majors letting us know about
internship or job opportunities they have heard about. A lot of people I know have gotten
internships that way, doing interview work for non-profits in rough
neighborhoods, interning at the National Catholic Reporter, and other things
like that. In January I got an email
from a professor about an opportunity that looked perfect for me: Business Blog
Writing. I could do it from home on my
own time, which was great because I also worked at the Learning Center so it
would be hard to go somewhere for several hours during the day.
I emailed the contact person,
frantically put together a resume and some writing samples, held my breath and
crossed my fingers, and got hired! I was
so excited…it was blogging, I could handle that; I had experience with
that. The job involved blogging for
other businesses who wanted to outsource their blog, so I would do research,
include keywords, and write a post.
I got my first assignment. Plumbing.
It was for a plumbing company. Like most 21-year-old girls, my knowledge of
plumbing is limited to the small plunger that came in a handy little stand my
mom and I found at Target. I called my
dad in desperation—tell me anything, anything,
you know about plumbing! No dice. I was on my own. It sunk in then that this is what growing up
and figuring out your future is like, namely, an utterly ridiculous situation
in which you just have to take your best shot.
So I wrote what I consider to be an incredibly impressive post on what
to look for when purchasing a toilet (I could tell you all about green toilets
and flush power if you asked me). And
that was step one. After that came
months of posts about office rental, hair highlighting, diet supplements, and
all sorts of random things. I’ve gotten
it wrong a lot, but I usually figure things out, and I am ready for the next
Great Internship Challenge.
What I apparently look like while in the blogging zone.
