Thoughts on the Future

The final two weeks of my internship are here, and it's making me think quite a bit about the future of my career. Not to be a pessimist, but I don't think I'm going to get hired for an actual position here right after graduation, based on the age of everyone that works here. I don't exactly see any 22-year-old reporters walking around the office! That said, I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about places I could get hired based on the skills that I've picked up here. For example, working here at a newspaper, I can branch out into a variety of related fields -- like radio and television. And given that my internship work was heavily focused on country music, I could explore work opportunities at places like Nash FM, GAC, CMT, etc. Those all seem like really spunky places to work!

When I was dialing the phone to do an interview today, I had a sudden realization about all the things I've learned specifically from working in this office. And when I say specifically, I mean specifically. For example, dialing 9 before making an outgoing call on the office phone, knowing which conference room to use when conducting an interview, or knowing to write 9 a.m. in an article instead of 9:00 A.M. Sometimes it seems like a waste of time to learn all these specific things about a place where I'm only working for one summer, but now I know what I need to figure out for the next job that I end up getting -- like which number to dial to make an outgoing call!

I'm going to try and make the most out of my last two weeks here. When there's such a short amount of time left, there's a lot of pressure to capitalize on every second.

- Greg Hicks
(Nashville music reporting intern at The Tennessean)