It was gearing to be the summer before I started my senior year of college, and I was determined to land an internship. I worked hard to perfect my resume. I spent hours on LinkedIn searching for internships. I arranged to have informational meetings with anyone who wanted to help mentor me. And when I tell you that I applied to over 30 internships, I wasn’t kidding.
Summer came around, and guess what? I didn’t have a single offer. I think I got around five to ten rejections and didn’t even hear back from the others.
Now, I want to emphasize that I didn’t need this internship to graduate. As a matter of fact, I actually had an internship my freshman year, with a YouTuber named Monica Church. It was an unpaid internship where I learned a lot about videography and photography, and helped produce and edit video and photo content for Monica’s YouTube and Instagram accounts.
But for some reason, I still felt pressured to get another internship. I thought if I was able to land another one, I would be seen as more valuable and talented. After all, your senior year of college is crucial because you’re preparing yourself to head out into the real world!
Yet, throughout the summer I watched my friends and classmates share their “special news” about the internships they got. I was so excited for them, but I also thought, what did they have that I didn’t? What did I do wrong this time? Why aren’t I qualified?
Finally, my senior year started and I still didn’t have an internship offer. I eventually got my hopes down, but for some reason, I started seeing the angel numbers 11:11 a lot. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew the universe was trying to tell me something. I looked it up, and 11:11 signifies a wake-up call to yourself or your consciousness about the new things that are about to happen in your life.
Then, one day in November, an opportunity arose. Two of my favorite influencers, Keaton Milburn and Nat Braun posted on their Instagram stories that their clothing company, twinflames., was hiring a Social Media and Creative Direction Intern. I took the risk and applied. Within a couple of days, they replied and said, “We loved looking over your resume and portfolio and would love to move forward with the trial project”. Finally, someone was interested and wanted to see my skills be put to the test! Days after that, I sent in my project and they loved that too! I interviewed with them the following week and…THEY OFFERED ME THE POSITION! And even though this internship is also unpaid, I was thrilled to accept the offer.
Just this past week, I had my first day on the job and it was incredible! As a Social Media and Creative Direction Intern, I’ll get to help schedule Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest posts. I’ll get to work closely with the marketing intern and other social media interns as well as get to work with the CEOs to pitch new creative direction ideas for campaigns. This internship is not only a step in the direction of my dream job, but it’s also an opportunity for me to learn from two people who inspire me.
I started following Keaton on social media because I admired how she chose to go to college and yet, still had time to share her life with her followers through her vlogs and Instagram posts. After following Keaton on social media, I naturally got to see a little glimpse into her life and came to also love Keaton’s best friend (and twinflame) Nat. She would be featured in Keaton’s vlogs and tagged in all of Keaton’s Instagram photos, so I came to love her too and also started following her.
One of the big reasons why I was so excited to take on this position was because it’s not very often when someone gets to learn from their idols. AND I GET TO DO THAT. This is only the start of my internship, but I cannot wait to see how much I’ve learned and grown when I wrap up my internship in June.
All of this to say, there is no right path nor right way to land an internship.
Internships are supposed to be about gaining experience, so don’t be so hard on yourself when you’ve only been accepted into unpaid ones. If you haven’t landed one yet, just keep looking! Reach out to people and set up informational interviews. Take their advice and figure out what fields you’re interested in. If you’ve already had one and are looking for another, keep your options open. It’s better to apply, apply, apply than to not put yourself out there.
Because remember IT ONLY TAKES ONE.