Oh, Oprah!

Remember back when you were touring Columbia? You were probably just a junior or a senior and were fascinated by everything the perky blonde tour guide was telling you.

“We’re Columbia University in the City of New York . Do you know what that means? That means you get to take advantage of all that New York has to offer! That includes internships! I’ve had an internship every semester after my first semester freshman year. If you went to a small liberal arts college in the middle of the Northeast (or should I say the middle of nowhere?), you wouldn’t get to have any internships! This is a unique opportunity and you need to take advantage of it!”

One year into the college grind, I decided that I, too, ought to start taking better advantage of all New York has to offer. Over the summer, I was the acting director of communications for Assemblyman Michael Gianaris in Astoria, Queens. I realized that I should start focusing on whatever my career was going to be. While I’m not completely sure where that road will lead, I’m fairly certain it will be in the fields of journalism, law, communications, or academia. Therefore, I decided to accept an internship as the fall books intern at O Magazine.

I chose this internship because I knew it would help me immensely in learning more about how a magazine is published. And I love books, so how could I not love being the books intern? But in order to fit an internship into my schedule, I needed to make sure I didn’t have classes on one full day of the week.

Needless to say, it’s all pretty stressful. Balancing schoolwork, friends, family, and classes is hard enough as it is. To then throw in 10 to 12 hours a week at an internship makes it even harder. Sunday and Monday nights, I find myself scrambling to get ahead with my week’s work that I know of in advance so I can still have time to do the random work that pops up mid-week. Back when I didn’t have an internship, that random work didn’t seem so daunting. I always had blocks of time in which I could do my work. But with my internship, those blocks are now spent working.

But that is not to say my internship is without merit. In many ways, I think this internship is more valuable than adding on another class. I have learned so much in the short time I’ve worked there. I have been immersed in a large office, helped to edit articles, assisted with daily tasks to make the magazine run, attended staff meetings, and gotten to completely preoccupy myself with books. Reading is what I love, and the thought that I can maybe one day have a full-time job like this is a heartening, uplifting thought. I know that the skills I gain at O Magazine will help me for the rest of my life, no matter what profession I ultimately choose. But if I do happen to choose magazine publishing, I’ll be a few steps ahead of the game. And it never hurts to be prepared.

The author is a Barnard College sophomore. She is a staff writer for Arts & Entertainment.