Emily Esleck | jrnl4970

Find What You Love and Dive In

By Emily Esleck

When you think about your first big break — what it will look like, where it is, what kind of people you’ll get to work with — it has a certain excitement to it. After all, the importance of achieving your career goals is something teachers, parents and mentors have instilled in you since the beginning.

That notion makes us all feel like we have to be workhorses, live to work or something like that. And so simply everything in our lives becomes centered on what you’ll “make of yourself” or “what you’re meant to do.”

But life is so much more than that. Sure, we need to have a job but enjoying it and creating a healthy balance between work and other aspects of life are just as important, at least in my book.

My fall 2016 semester was filled to the brim with résumés, cover letters and many phone calls to potential employers. Elementary to middle, then high school and college, it never seems to end until it all culminates into these last few months of scrambling to make sure all your preparation has paid off.

Just as my graduation from Auburn University nears, I landed a freelancing job, an end goal I’ve had for a while now, at a magazine nearby.

Networking is vital, but sometimes it just comes down to your raw passion for your career. That’s what happened when I visited Tallapoosa Publishers for this Community Journalism Road Trip.

My assignment was to interview journalism professionals at The Alexander City Outlook, a community newspaper not too far from Auburn. Since I was interested in magazine journalism, our professor ensured I had a newspaper that also published a community magazine.

I had never really realized that local papers produced their own magazines as well. It was neat to learn how small community magazines work. I interviewed managing editor Betsy Iler about the day-to-day operations of the magazines.

But mostly, we chatted about the importance of magazine and feature writing, how magazines can make a story jump to life on a page. Just the presentation of it gives magazine lovers a thrill, we agreed.

We had a nice time sharing a mutual interest for the industry, and I left feeling accomplished.

The following Friday I received a phone call from Betsy, and she told me they were looking to hire me as a freelance writer. She explained that she liked how I presented myself that day and told me she found my personal website online. She read through my article clips and said I was a great writer.

Wow, talk about a wake up call. I hadn’t even applied for the job and here I was with my first freelance position. It just goes to show you that anything can happen.

I love writing, and I love pursuing my career in magazine journalism. There isn’t this big stress weighing on my shoulders anymore about what I’m meant to do or what kind of job I’ll get once I’m out in the real world after college.

This road trip assignment helped me learn more about opportunities I didn’t know existed.

Learning the ins and outs of a community newspaper and magazine gave me a greater appreciation for local journalism. Community journalism is vital.

Speaking with newspaper managing editor Mitch Sneed and Iler helped me see there is much to uncover even in a small town such as Alexander City, Alabama.

One of the best pieces of advice Iler told me was to write every day. That stuck with me, and it’s probably what will make or break a good writer. Every journalist should be constantly improving his or her writing skills. I would pass this tip on to any aspiring journalist out there.

Also, when trying to integrate into the workforce, make your own website! It has made all the difference. Not once, but twice, it has helped me be noticed by employers this semester. Package all your clips and work them into one great presentation and show ‘em what you got. I promise it’ll help.