Okay, so I’m very very new to this (I just found this amazing site yesterday!), and I have some questions. Once you get an internship (say, in New York), how would you actually live there?? I live and go to college in South Carolina, so I could probably only intern in New York or another out-of-state city during the summer. Do the magazines you intern for help you with living agrangements? Or do you just have to fend for yourself? I’ve looked at some things on Craigslist, and it seems near to impossible! :( Also, when is the ideal time to intern? I’m a freshman in college right now, so should I wait until next summer to start trying for internships (at least the big-time ones in New York)? Or should I just do it now? Thanks so much! :)
Ed2010™
Resources like the one you
Resources like the one you mentioned here will be very useful to me! I will post a link to this page on my blog. I am sure my visitors will find that very useful.
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my advice
Hey Mbeth.
Here is my personal advice. Since you are a freshman, you should just go to college in NYC. Try to transfer to a school that you think would fit you best. I am not sure if you are interested in fashion, but a lot of people i know that went to fashion industries high school in chelsea ended up well prepared and ended up getting scholarships to FIT.. where just by going there you have more oomph in your resume for fashion magazines. Oh, what did i want to say, yes FIT is cheap. It is like 2000 a semester. The best part is during the spring and fall semesters, internships are more widely available. Besides, you will have more opportunites available to you in New york. Not sure what kind of journalism you want to do.. but the possibilities are endless. Oh housing. yes. The best place to get reasonbly priced housing is queens. IN queens, the grocery markets arent jacked and duane reade dosent charge a million dollars for toilet paper. My friend lives in jackson heights and has a much nicer apartment than my closet in manhattan and he goes to school with me. I think he pays like 900 a month for a one bed.
Mass Comm. and Print
Mass Comm. and Print Journalism are definitely two options—probably the most conservative but that’s what I’d aim for. Have you also considered picking up English as a Major or Minor? You’ll work your but off, but it supports a Communications major greatly.
As far as applications go, I think you could go either way. If you won’t be discouraged if you hear nothing from mags outside of SC, then I say go for it. But you’ll need internships later anyhow so Junior and Senior years are the ones to focus on.
I started school a lot like you, so if you’re looking for some more advice, or want to talk about what it’s like to try getting some good mag. experience in New York, drop me a line sometime at brian.t.oconnor [at] gmail.com. I’d love to try to answer any of your questions.
Plan ahead for housing and it's not that bad
Everyone knows interns flood NYC in the summer (in mags, finance, PR, advertising, everything!), so there are a lot of ways to find temporary housing. Many NYU/Columbia students sublet their apartments. If you book early enough in the game, you can live in the NYU or Columbia dorms (sometimes you have to take one class, which couldn’t hurt), or in private dorms that are set up for those schools. If you plan ahead, you can make it happen.
Hey mbeth, You asked a
Hey mbeth,
You asked a couple of great questions. Let me try to get them into a flowing order, which might help paint a clearer picture of finding internships in New York.
Firstly, what’s your major? What sort of writing/editing are you looking to pursue? These questions are important ones to ask of yourself—make sure you have even just a general sense of what you want to pursue, and if your major relates to it. If you are either Communications, Journalism, or English, you’re probably starting off on the right foot. Good for you, as a freshman, looking down the road for the next few years of school. You seem to be starting well.
Along that path, if you’re looking to nail a great internship in New York, you’re going to have to pay dues back home. Get on your school’s newspaper and make it a big (if not biggest) focus outside of classes. The higher you get, the better you’ll look. Try sending out applications for internships on local papers, magazines, and other media outlets. If you make a splash there, your odds of being recognized at a large NY publisher will increase.
On to the housing/application situation. If you plan to intern in the city, having a local address on your resume might be a huge dealmaker. I’ve had folks who, coming from out of state, put down a New York address before settling in—don’t kid yourself about how hard it is to get jobs here, because the difference between a phone call and a trash bin really can boil down to your zip code.
Housing itself is hard, but not impossible. You need to know where to look: look to outer-borough locales and across the river at New Jersey. It might not be the Carrie Bradshaw-ian lifestyle many people think NY is—but to be honest, that crap doesn’t happen anywhere but on sound stages. If you can land a sublet near any form of mass transit, you’re good to go.Some people on ed2010 have said certain programs help with housing (Time Inc., for example. Although I’ve worked as an intern there for a year now and never heard of that program), but don’t rely on the “kindness of strangers” if you can help it.
So, a summary of sorts:
- You’re off to a good start; now get to work locally. Work your way up any ladder you come across in S.C.—you’ll need to if you want to make it up in NY.
- Wait a year or two. You really only need to get big-time internships junior-senior year (in my opinion). Use this time to become a big fish in a small pond since it will stand out on your resume
- Housing is tough, but 8 million of us found a way to make it work. If you know where to look, or how to look, you can find something. Try coming in the summer—it will fit your school schedule, and you may even find people looking for summer tenants if they are non-local students going back home.
and…well… best of luck!
Thank you!
First of all, thank you so much, both of you! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the advice.
To texas: That’s very encouraging information. :) I will definitely be keeping that in mind when I do shoot for New York. As far as finding places that you mentioned, would something like Craigslist be a good route to go or is there a better option?
To bcbrian:
My major is Mass Communication and I’ve already taken the intro class for the major. Over this past summer and early last semester I worked for the university’s newspaper and wrote two articles for it, but I got really stressed/intimidated and I quit, amicably, but in all fairness I didn’t give the paper that much of a chance. I had worked on my high school’s newspaper for two years - in the last year I was the editor - and I think I was expecting something a little different. Also I’m not the most outgoing person in the world and I think I let shyness and fear (about interviewing…etc.) dictate my decision. I thought that I just needed to go into something different…but I’m starting to realize that everything I love comes back to the mass media. So, I’m trying to push past all of that and just get used to it. Though, I don’t think I would want to be a journalist for the rest of my life. I love English, writing, books, movies, pop culture…etc. so I think that somewhere in the media is where I should be.
I’m glad to know I’m on the right path. :) And I’m going to mentally prepare myself for working on the paper again, I guess I know what to expect now. And I will try for local internships as well, there is actually a women’s magazine in my hometown.
As far as a major goes, my school offers, in Mass Comm, Print Journalism, Convergence, PR and Broadcast. Since I don’t want to be in front of the camera, or do PR, I guess my tract is print. Though, I don’t think I’ll be at this school for the rest of my college career. I might transfer to a bigger school like University of South Carolina or College of Charleston, depending on which has a better Mass Comm program. Besides the tracts listed, do you know of any other specified tracts closer to the magazine industry?
And for all the housing/application advice, thanks again! It’s so nice to hear from someone who has actually done it and knows how this works. :) I will definitely keep everything you’ve said in mind, and it’s nice to know that it’s not impossible like it seems right now :)
Along those same lines: Would you hold off on sending applications to cities (like NY or others) altogether, just waiting until junior/senior year? Do you think it would hurt any chances? Or does it matter?
Again, thank you so much! :)