9 to 5

Since my last post about finding internship opportunities, I managed to find one, apply, interview, submit a portfolio, get the job and work there for 3 days. That might sound like a lot, but I really just haven’t been blogging enough.

My friend Kayla (whose bridal portraits you may have seen in a previous post) is the one who really started all of this. I’ve been looking for a job that would let me get more hours this summer and even during school, while also thinking about internships. She mentioned that her company (TTI) has a creative department (Torque Creative), which offers paid internships in graphic design and gave me a number to contact. I honestly had no expectations going into it, but I ended up with an interview two days later and they hired me the same day.

I just started working on Monday and it has been an invaluable experience already. Seeing the environment and structure of a real workplace has basically confirmed for me that this is what I want to be doing. I have always been stuck between a love for design and a fear that I’m going to hate being in a cubicle from 9 to 5 every day. This has helped me in so many ways to put that into perspective and know what I’m getting myself into. It’s a crazy awesome balance between creative expression and work. And it pays.

Beyond just the experience of being there, I’ve also learned a lot by watching the designers work and being given some minor work of my own. I absolutely know that having done this, even just for a few weeks, will affect the rest of my time in school. There won’t be any more wondering if what we’re learning will really be useful later on. The “end goal” isn’t just some ambiguous mental image of waking up early, wearing a tie, sitting at a desk and drinking coffee.

All that said, I don’t think that this internship will meet the school’s requirements for internships for a lot of reasons. Bummer, but I kind of expected it. It’s still a job for right now, and an amazing opportunity, and doing a second internship next year can’t hurt anything.