Internships

Unremarkably Remarkable: Thoughts and Musings from Just Another Small-town Girl Living in the Big City

Welcome to my not-very-first blog post, but rather the very second installment of Unremarkably Remarkable: Thoughts and Musings from Just Another Small-town Girl Living in the Big City. After I posted last week’s “New Year’s Resolutions,” I was overcome with a feeling of anticipation. That somehow, now that I was officially “on the web,” everything would change. So I sat at my computer in anticipation, repeatedly entering the exasperatingly lengthy url to this blog (I never seem to remember to bookmark pages while I am on them), counting my followers (of which there are two), and waiting – for what I am not quite certain. Eventually I realized that nothing outstandingly different had happened or was going to just because I had created this blog. I also realize now that my solitary post does not make much of a blog on its own, and that if I really want to accomplish the goals I have laid out for myself in that initial post, I am going to have to add another. So having come to my senses at last, I have decided to write today about internships.

A big factor in my decision to attend Barnard in the first place was its extensive career services. When applying to schools I looked exclusively at the ones touting highly-rated career service departments that helped students obtain internships. Before my junior year of high school I did not really know what an internship was, let alone the tremendous value of them. When I expressed to my father my interest in the publishing industry, he encouraged me to apply to New York schools, but also tried to impress upon me the importance of internships, repeatedly suggesting that I factor them in when choosing a college. I followed this advice, but as the case always seems to be when my parents give me good advice, it took me a couple of years to recognize their full value for myself.

For my first couple of years as a student at Barnard, I have repeatedly questioned my chosen path. After a few incredulous remarks of “What can you do with an English degree? Teach?” and other such skeptical responses from various people upon finding out my major, I began to question the wisdom of choosing it – especially in the recent economic climate. I also had a difficult time adjusting to the city and was advised by various professionals not to go into anything having to do with print media – a severely handicapped industry in the face of the ever-expanding internet and steady shift from print to electronic media. After some time, however, I remembered what made me choose a major in English in the first place: my long-enduring passion for reading and writing. My father always advised me to do the job that I would do for free. So here I am, doing what I love for free and hoping to find a way to support myself on it in the future.

That is where an internship comes in. Through Barnard’s Office of Career Development and the extensive NACElink network, an online job and internship database, I have been acquainted with a wealth of opportunities for an English major such as myself. I have looked into editorial, publicity, and writing internships as well as jobs at literary agencies and various publications, and have found that the media industry is not suffering from internet-mania, but is simply going through and adjustment period. Being a good-old-fashioned book lover myself, I certainly hope not to witness the death of print media in my lifetime – there is nothing like the smell of a freshly printed newspaper or a good book, whether it be new or old – but I am confident that there are more people out there who feel the same way I do, and that electronic media will only serve to increase the general readership, providing resources for people to better educate themselves, without wiping out print media entirely.

Regardless, acquiring an internship during the interim months before I leave for Germany will be invaluable in providing me with contacts, networking opportunities, and experience. In a year and a half when I graduate and it is time for me to choose a career path, I will be able to make a well-informed decision on what kind of job I want to pursue. As of yet, I have not officially acquired my long-awaited internship, but have several leads and am hoping that something will come of them.

Until next time,

Leah

New Year's Resolutions

Unremarkably Remarkable: Thoughts and Musings from Just Another Small-town Girl Living in the Big City

New Year’s Resolution No.1: Finally get around to creating that blog I have been meaning to get around to creating since Bush was President – which I suppose was not a very long time ago in the grand scheme of things, but seems like eons ago to me, a junior at Barnard College when thinking of my wide-eyed freshman self. I repeatedly have been shown that writing a blog is the best way to practice my writing, share thoughts, and publicly muse about everything from college life to my favorite books to that icky New York open-sewer smell. Well here we are, and I, in my futile pursuit of perfection, cannot decide where to start. Perhaps, to begin with, a little background on myself is in order.

Much of the tangled web in my mind of story ideas and writing concepts, just waiting to be committed to paper, have been influenced by my small-town-girl-in-the-big-city perspective, which incidentally influenced the title of this blog. I hale from a speck of a town called Pleasant Hill, Oregon in the countryside just East of Eugene – which is barely more than a speck itself compared to New York City. Growing up in Pleasant Hill was pleasant enough – though I would say tolerable with a few redeeming features is a more accurate description, but you can’t name a town Tolerable-With-a-Few-Redeeming-Features Hill. That would not look good on the side of the football stands at the high school, nor on the sign above the feed store, and would be entirely too long to print on any map. The name itself would cover the entire expanse of the town.

So I suppose that will be the main angle of this blog – the adventures of a country Oregon girl in the big city, and quite the adventure it has been. I certainly had no idea what I was getting into when I shipped myself off to New York City, having only briefly visited New York once before. Brusque and angry New Yorkers? Fashionably-late New York tardiness? Insane, Evil Knievel cab drivers? Those are just stereotypes, I had thought just two and a half years ago in my starry-eyed ignorance. And if that was not enough, here I am shipping myself off again in April 2011, this time to Munich, Germany with nothing but a rudimentary understanding of the German language and some (hopefully) more realistic expectations. So in the meantime I must find something to do with myself – which will hopefully include something along the lines of an internship that has to do with my English major – the finding of which will be quite the adventure in itself. And of course, now that I have begun this blog, I will of course devote some time to sharing my unremarkably remarkable thoughts and musings.

Until next time,

Leah Sikora