Working for free – it’s called an internship…

via http://shouldiworkforfree.com/

HerCampus: Top 9 Highest-Paying College Majors

Here is the article I wrote for HerCampus – I thought it would be a good piece of college life/career news for the blog and can show that I do have a bit of an excuse for my infrequent blogging…

Spotted, a recent college grad wearing this shirt: “I have a degree in Liberal Arts. Do you want fries with that?”

For those graduating with liberal arts degrees, and a lot of other degrees for that matter, complete financial security might feel like a distant dream far into the future.
Last spring, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported the average salary offers to 2010 bachelor’s degree candidates were down 1.7 percent from 2009.Each year the cost of college increases – rising over 30 percent for public colleges and 23 percent for private institutions since 1997. No one likes tohear they are paying more money for an education that will eventually provide them with less.

But not every major will force its students to spend the rest of their lives paying back student loans and “in the red.” Some majors have the potential to provide their students with high-paying jobs and long-term financial security. Her Campus breaks down Newsweek’s list of the best majors for big paychecks and what it takes to be a student and professional in each field.

1. Engineering

Your mental image of engineers may include thick-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors, but these “nerds” are actually the cool kids sitting on the top of the list. According to Newsweek, engineers are number one when it comes to highest earning jobs. They make a median salary of $61,000 right out of college and $105,000 by midcareer.

“Money is an advantage of engineering, but I chose it because it will allow me the most opportunity,” junior engineering major Kathryn Bergmann from the University of Missouri said.

And there is a lot of opportunity. Engineering is a broad profession that breaks down into more specific areas like chemical, mechanical and civil. An engineer can do everything from build bridges to create new materials for building those bridges.

What are your strengths?

In general you should be good at math and science and actually like math and science if you want to be an engineer. You will spend a lot of time in high-level classes for everything from physics and chemistry to calculus.

“Engineering is a difficult major in general, but overall I believe the hardest part is the schedule demand. In order to graduate on time your schedule has to be very full every semester,” Kathryn said.

Benefits

Besides earning the highest-ranking salary and covering a broad range of job areas, engineering is a male dominated field. According to the American Society of Engineering Education, in 2009 of all graduates awarded bachelor’s degrees in engineering, only 17.8 percent were women.

“A woman in engineering is in high demand and that allows you to kind of pick and choose where you go and what you do,” Kathryn said.

These uneven numbers can also make finding a study buddy in class more fun.

“Boys greatly outnumber the girls in engineering courses,” says Kathryn.

Enough said.

The making of a New Yorker.

In “The Making of a New Yorker” author John Steinbeck writes something that encompasses a lot of my summer experience in New York City…

ew York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it-once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. All of everything is concentrated here, population, theatre, art, writing, publishing, importing, business, murder, mugging, luxury, poverty. It is all of everything. It goes all right. It is tireless and its air is charged with energy. I can work longer and harder without weariness in New York than anyplace else…

via A Society Story

Drop cap artwork from www.dailydropcap.com

Long live People.

Note: I’ve had three “special intern lunches” (aka, you come, big wigs talk, everyone eats crappy/free food) this week with several editors and business people at Time Inc. – so, be warned, here come some posts about the state of big journalism (from my perspective of course).

Found this ad in my SI magazine today - it's a sign or good timing on this post.

Newspapers and journalism are not the same thing. That may seem like a “duh” statement – but it is not, people do not always separate the two.

Newspapers are dying. Newspapers can’t be saved. Newspapers won’t exist in the future. All of this may or may not be true, but one thing is for sure – the term journalism applies to a lot more than just the black and white print. People often forget this. Newspapers may be struggling, but journalism as a whole isn’t about to jump in the grave.

Here are some facts on newspaper circulation in 2009:

Overall, newspaper circulation fell 4.6 % daily and 4.8% Sunday for the six-month period ended September 30, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That was even worse than the 2.6% declines daily and 4.6% Sunday reported for the period a year earlier

An here is a fact about newspaper circulation over the last decade:

The print circulation slide from 2001 to 2008 totals roughly 13.5 % daily and 17.3% Sunday.

Advertisement sales in newspapers echo these declines as well making it all the more bleak for companies like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But let’s not forget another area of journalism, another area of print journalism even; magazines.

Not every magazine in the industry is prospering – it’s true. But some magazines have something working for them that newspapers do not; they are valued brands. When a household in the Midwest starts to cut back on finances, what are the first things to go. The subscription to The New York Times? Yes. The subscription to Time Magazine? Maybe. The subscription to People? NEVER!

The CEO of Time Inc., Ann Moore, tells a story to explain why this is the case:

When financial times get tight, the men’s underwear market always takes a hit. The women’s never sees the change. This is because women deal with the money in the home. Today a majority of household finances are entirely run by women. Of course she will sacrifice her husbands cleanliness before her own, after-all she is the one buying his underwear for him anyway.

The same is true 0f the decision making process a woman makes for the “journalism” she is willing to sacrifice. Online and television journalism is safe – it’s (mostly) free, and there’s no way the kids will tolerate the exile of the television. The newspaper can go and a news magazine might even be fat to cut. But People is a womans way to escape. Only the most drastic times will make her stop paying for her bible of the ‘hottest bachelors of the summer’ or ‘weight loss secrets.’ As Ann Moore said, ‘target the women, that market won’t leave.’ Reasons like this are why magazine journalism can hang on even when newspapers are fading into a history lesson.

And what about digital news, online publications, and mobile applications? Are these not journalism? Are these not providing breaking news and groundbreaking multimedia journalistic content? I’m pretty sure they are… and I’m pretty sure we are only just seeing the ways things like the tablet and html5 can expand the capabilities of journalists.

So when you hear the newspaper is dying – don’t shed a tear for journalism. Journalism is going to be just fine.

Legal larceny.

Look at them Apples - my very first class in college. Enough Apples and journalism nerds in the room to scare anyone away.

I figured out why companies want interns. They want to steal our ideas.

That may sound mean, but it’s true – it’s legal larceny.

This week I participated in a discussion group about SI.com. A group of interns and I sat around and took questions from SI.com staff. We talked about online use, twitter accounts, video content, page design, mobile applications, and social media identity – pretty much everything any journalism nerd skips class to sit around RJI to debate.

And the discussion was a perfect setting for me – I like to talk, I like having opinions, and I really like talking about my opinions on online/social media. Plus they threw in sports. Screw volunteering for this, I would have PAID to be part of the group.

The beauty of it all was that everyone in the room was exactly like me. Nerd haven. They gave us one question to start the discussion – what do you think of our facebook page – and off we went. The simple lunch discussion turned into two hours of complete brand evaluation. The best part was that our group was the perfect mix. Interns have a facilitating combination of journalism knowledge, millennial generation ideology, understanding of a company’s capabilities, and ambitious attitudes willing to suggest ideas outside the box.

Before you knew it we had redeveloped SI.com (okay, not really – but we did have some worthwhile comments).

SI.com got a lot out of our discussion. I think we confirmed and contradicted some of their decisions – giving them ideas to grow and recreate. But, how about us interns? We had our ideas willingly stolen. Besides that, what did we get out of it?

More than you may think.

We realized that, yes, sometimes we do know more than the bosses. We can see from an outsider’s perspective, but with an insider’s understanding. Yes, we are valuable. They listened to our opinions and genuinely wanted to understand our thoughts. What we said can create change. Yes, we can contribute. Interns can be more than fact checkers, sometimes those little ideas you come up with sitting in your cubicle can actually be put in effect. So, overall, yes – we are earning our pay (at least for today).

If there is another intern discussion in the next few weeks, count me in. I like to talk, but, more importantly, I like what I get out of it.

Young, educated, and working for nada.

ount me out of compaining about the supposed slave labor of internships – I love my current intern position and, not only do I get a paycheck every two weeks, but I also get housing (in NYC that is worth more than anything). I can, however, sympathize with my unpaid intern pals. These are the friends who forgo eating real meals, and instead make friends with the hotdog vendors on the streets so they can get a dog at discount. They are having a rough summer trying to get the full experience of a good internship and the ultimate adventure of life in The City. A few days ago Huffington Post College posted a short documentary by Jett Wells all about their frustration…

This is a problem getting more and more media attention lately. I have a simple solution for companies who want interns, but will be slapped with labor violations because they simply can’t afford to pay them like real employees (yeah, I’m looking at you journalism) - why not offer scholarships?

Screw trying to compete with the salaries accounting, finance, and marketing interns make ($20 plus dollars/hr… gasp – they can really “make it rain” in the intern world), just offer us a $1,000 bonus at the end of the summer if interns complete their job to a satisfactory level. Sure $1,000 isn’t enough to compensate for an intern’s summer or rent, utilities, food, and travel expenses, but it is something. I’ve worked unpaid nternships while simultaneously working paid jobs – it’s the only way for me to make it through the year without starving, call me guilty. If I had a little money incentive, maybe I would have spent more time in the newsroom and less time working for tips at the local golf course while serving old men beer. Who knows, maybe companies could get more out of their interns and interns wouldn’t be crying at the end of the summer when assessing their drained bank accounts.

(Drop cap art from www.dailydropcap.com)

Multimedia meltdown.

Multimedia and online are the future of journalism.

Upon entering college three years ago I was drilled with this idea every single time I stepped into a journalism or communication class.

The lecture would go a little something like this…

“The principles of American journalism… blah, blah, blah… online journalism. Joseph Pulitzer once said… blah, blah, blah… multimedia.”

My teachers preached this, guest lecturers raved about this, and (once I had enough cred to get one) my internship bosses imparted this wisdom as well. And by choosing to follow the Convergence sequence in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, I too glorify (present tense) this thought – especially at 8 am when I have to roll out of bed, run to convergence class across campus, and remind myself why I am awake.

Newsflash: here is a new piece of wisdom, us journalism school kids are sick of hearing that multimedia and online are the future of journalism. Not because it’s wrong, but because we know this and so does everyone else.

A recent Huffington Post article, whether meaning to or not, perfectly proves my point. The article called, College Journalists Are Good at Consuming Multimedia but Bad at Making It. Why?, is about the author, Michael Koretzky, and his experience judging a multimedia competition. The college newspaper websites he set out to evaluate fell way below his expectations. He theorized why…

Print is special to college journalists precisely because it’s old tech.

The easiest way to insult a college journalist is to tell them they have an online exclusive.

On our campus, newsprint is still the most mobile and immediate form of media.

Alas, it takes a lot of time to maintain even a homely newspaper website.

All of his reasons are totally correct. But I think there is another underlying, bigger theme he is missing. As journalism students, we are always around multimedia and online journalism – a majority of my classes even have the words ‘multimedia’ and ‘online’ in their official titles. We know how to make good multimedia and we are taught how to make good multimedia everyday… it is expected of us and of our professors. When it comes to actually doing it, sometimes we are burnt out and we just don’t care. I have been blogging and making web pages since high school (19% of people 12-17 have their own blogs). There is nothing too overly thrilling or special about this multimedia online production for me.  When I enter the workforce in a year (fingers crossed) I will be expected to know how to create meaningful online content – and I will. Will anything else be expected of me… I don’t know.

Right now for me, simplistic web design and online publications are just as welcome as a ‘flashy’ page with flash.

Maybe this reporter should take a step back from his expectations… is it really a bad thing when my internet age generation is worried more about content over presentation? Right now, while we are in school, let us worry about what we put out there – when we wear suits and ties in a few years, then you can worry about how we put it out there and if that ‘how’ is making it sell.

iLike the iPad.

The whole video and application was made without ever seeing more than a few minutes of an iPad demo – skill.

Being a Time Inc. intern has its perks. Somedays the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck (that’s not a joke) stops by the Time and Life building to give you free ice cream. Some days tourists take a picture of you leaving the office building because apparently you look like an “authentic working New Yorker” (guess I’m playing the part well). And some days you get to sit down with industry leaders.

Last week senior editors from Time and Time.com gave us interns a bit of insight into their departments, jobs, and thoughts on the field of journalism – it was truly a treat. While there was a wide array of topics covered and expert advice given, I was the most amazed by how much each of them focused on what they are doing with the iPad.

The iPad will be able to give mass audience a new way to get the news. I wasn’t a believer of this until it came straight from industry leaders’ mouths. Essentially every magazine will be able to produce two products – one for print and one for the iPad. A photo in print can lead into a video on the iPad – which can then lead into an interactive google map, which can lead into a restaurant location, which can lead into a menu, which can lead into… well you get the point. It is insane the number of possibilities the iPad presents. And it is even more insane the process a magazine like Time must go through to give their readers quality content and valuable “extras.”

And who is all of this good news for? Well, yes, readers of course. But more importantly, me!

Sitting at the presentation and hearing the type of content that is being generated and developed for the iPad gave me hope – multimedia journalism has places to expand to. Online publications are not the peak. Multimedia can continue to grow into new areas. As a journalist in the convergence field, I will be able to find a niche in these new areas.

So Time, when I am done with my internship (and one more year of school) – please come calling. I am on the iPad bandwagon and ready to go!

Get her to the Greek.

y secret talent: I can say the Greek alphabet in about five seconds. Yes, all 24 greek letters. And, yes, I can say it so that you can understand it. Don’t doubt.

But do you really understand me and my Greek Life affiliation? Probably not (see this post: Sorority Membership is for a Lifetime, Except at Work for my inspiration to this post discovered via re-tweet).

I learned to say the Greek alphabet as a part of my new member education for Delta Gamma sorority. At school, when I say I am a DG people get it (our student body is about 25% Greek and includes many student leaders, several professors and prominent alumni). But out in the “real world” people don’t. They say: ‘Wow, you must have been to some crazy parties’ or ‘how do you survive living in a house with so many girls?’ But there is so much more than that – the social life – to Greek Life…

Forget the “my sisters changed my life” and the “I became a better person” stories that fellow Greeks peddle when trying to convince people why their Greek membership is/was valuable. These stories are all true, I can attest to that. A Greek experience will help you develop skills in leadership, loyalty, sisterhood, character, respect and responsibility in a manner unlike any other organization. But someone in the “real world” where money matters and character doesn’t count as much as salesmanship skills doesn’t care about all that stuff.

So how do you sell your Greek life affiliation then? You tell people what really matters… you tell them you run a business (as the blog Newly Corporate attests to). Because that is what sororities and fraternities boil down to; big businesses.

For full disclosure I am the current president of my sorority and while you may say this gives me a biased view of Greek Life, I can tell you it also gives me and insider view, one that I look at with a very critical eye.

I am doing something very few college students can sayd they do. I am running a business. My sorority works with a budget three figures big. We have 230-ish members in my chapter. We have 147 international chapters. And we have millions of alumni. If you are hiring me you should care about this. And here is why…

As a chapter president (or really any member who holds a position) I run the business, I am CEO. I am in charge of a large amount of money and the budgeting, collecting, distributing, and investing of that money. I must choose where that money should go and decide when sacrifices and extravagances need to be had. I also have 230 members to manage. Talk about needing human resource skills. I must communicate with these members. I must develop and enforce a system of accountability for these members. I must also have a way to evaluate these members. Membership also extends to millions of alumni who must be informed and often reported to. The maturity and delicateness with which these jobs must be carried out with is complex. In the past year that I have held high leadership positions within my chapter I have seen my thought processes change. I ask myself two questions when making decisions; is this good for my chapter and is this good for the longevity of my chapter? These are things that those in the business world always weigh when making big decisions.

So in the “real world” when some people shy away from announcing their Greek affiliation, I have no problem broadcasting mine. Right now people don’t “get it” – but I plan on making them see. Being Greek isn’t about the letters on your chest, it is about running a business that has been around for over a hundred years (my chapter celebrated a centennial last year). That takes a strong, savy, and smart person. So don’t doubt us sorority girls. Hire us instead.

(Drop cap art from www.dailydropcap.com)

Life without GPAs.

Over the past few weeks I have met so many new people both socially and professionally. When they hear I am in-town for the summer or that I am the new intern in the department they all robotically resort to the same questions. Where are you from? Where did you go to school?

Hold up… where DID I go to school? I’m flattered you think I am older , maybe more mature than your average college kid – but, please, no crazy talk here!

I, thankfully, still have a year of college left in my undergraduate life. I am even avoiding a dreaded December graduation – somehow my parents fell for the whole “but my scholarships last through the entire year,” speech I gave them this summer so I could stick around campus for the full year. But lately I am starting to wonder how much my undergraduate education will really be valued at in the “real world.” If I am already in the position to convince people I am qualified for jobs now – what difference will 24 more credits and a GPA do?

I figured I wasn’t the only “pre-senior year student” worrying about this over the summer. Can we call it a quarter-life “moment” – a degree less severe than a quarter-life crisis? Life Without Pants proved someone else out there has been thinking about this too.

In a May post, the blog poses some great questions: “Does college matter after you graduate”? Does our hard work mean squat after we’ve walked across the stage? Is it more of a personal pride thing as opposed to a professional requirement? Does it vary from industry to industry?

I have said it before – classroom work is valuable, but internships and real field experiences are what set one candidate above the next (at least in journalism I think). Does my 3.9 GPA really matter when the guy with the 3.3 has a blog getting 10,000 hits a day and produces multimedia like a pro? Yes, as a student I should shoot for the best of both worlds, ace classes and get quality internships/experiences. But, in two years will I be talking about my favorite journalism class in college or the work I did with so-and-so company? I am pretty sure it will be the later.

Also check out this post on Ms. Career Girl about the value of self-education.