I don’t have cancer. I’m not in a new relationship. And I don’t have a little sister to save from a drunken party. But I still connect to April Carver from the new ABC Family series Chasing Life. As a “floater”–basically an intern–at a Boston-based newspaper, April is a 24-year-old woman who is “paying her dues.” Her fellow floater seems to think he didn’t go to Harvard to have to pay his dues (I’m questioning why he probably went into massive debt at Harvard for journalism).
April is just starting out on her post-grad journey and is doing everything in her power to work her way to the top. From passing out at a blood drive to get an interview with a sports star to keeping her cancer a secret from her boss so he doesn’t use it against her, she is trying to show her boss she is more than a silent intern who can only accomplish the grunt work. April has the guts and the ambition that I like to think I have. I like to think I wouldn’t be afraid to dig up dirt about a politicians son or risk a hospital visit to get the exclusive interview no one else could.
Unfortunately for April, though, she doesn’t seem like she is learning a lot as an intern. She seems to be doing everything with no guidance whatsoever. If there is one thing about my internship at Boca Raton Magazine that is different from April’s, it’s that I’m learning. A lot of newspapers and magazines will hire interns purely for the free work (how is a magazine going to teach each intern independently when there is 20 of them?). I am fortunate that my boss wants to teach me about the industry and how to succeed in it.
What I thought was purely a brainstorming session turned into a lesson on interviews when my boss drilled me on being able to think of questions off the top of my head for a less than 30 second interview. I learned a lot from that quick drill, but I learned about myself too. I am not as good at quick and short interviews as I thought I would be–I like to be prepared by researching and writing questions beforehand.
This is what an internship is for, or at least what it should be. It’s for learning about what it’s really like in your industry, what the people are like and for discovering your own strengths and weaknesses and then working on them. You are interning for a company and your main goal should be to assist them in any way they need, but if you find the right internship, the company should want to help you too. Your bosses should in some capacity become your mentors.
” The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” -Vince Lombardi
From Southwest Florida to Boca Raton 
You’ve got it! Perfect!
Great blog kels, I’m so glad your learning so much and enjoying your internship. I think you will have left with a lot of great knowledge about your industry once you have completed this. Keep up the good work.