I may have missed out on a lot of things this summer, but one thing I’m glad I did skip was fetching coffee for Johnny McCEO at Kiss My Ass Incorporated. I interviewed for internships at ABC, MTV, NBC, etc. I finally ended up accepting a position close to home at the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission on the Loop. When I told people where my internship was, no one was overly impressed; fostering culture in the greater St. Louis area is certainly not in the same ballpark as producing “The Real World.” I believe that my experience, however, surpassed a big-name company internship.
Just a few of the minor perks of this job were having my own cubicle complete with phone and computer, being on a first-name basis with the staff (as opposed to the blank stares and “hey you”s that may occur in a larger company) and free tickets to numerous plays, operas and musical events throughout the summer.
More important, at such a small business, it was necessary for the interns to take on actual work, and we were entrusted with high-priority jobs. There’s no better way to gain experience in high-pressure office situations than to be right in the thick of things. Deadlines, finely detailed editing and picking up the slack of irresponsible organizers all allowed me to catch a sliver of a glimpse of what life after college might actually be like.
Living in my own apartment and actually having to grocery shop definitely contributed to my encroaching adulthood. I almost cried when the first electric bill came. We have to pay to turn the lights on now? What is that about? I guess the only way to learn how to be an adult is just to jump right into it.
Another fabulous life hurdle I got out of the way this summer was getting fired for the first time. More importantly, I got fired for pretty much no reason at all. Nothing like having your employment terminated for wearing a pair of green shoes to teach you a lesson about life not being fair.
Since this was my last summer as a college student, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I might potentially be doing at this time next year. I got nothing. I mean, all I really figured out was that I don’t want to have three jobs, and I wouldn’t mind staying in St. Louis. I also realized that I cannot possibly spend the entirety of my senior year worrying about what’s going to happen afterward.
So just a recap of what I learned this summer: smaller companies rock and treat you like a real person, green shoes = death, not being 21 sucks and senior year is scary and inevitable, but it should also be fun.