DD Hiatus Updates | Tia

TIA HERE with the deets on what's been going on since DD's hiatus, at least on my end. (Follow our social media for immediate updates!)

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

Since March, I have been up to my eyes in work—from exams (disguised as "quizzes" on the syllabus, but certainly far too formal to actually be considered thus) to papers, to piles and piles of club work, to a semester-long, virtual internship with an ebook publishing company. While I'm happy to say that my grades have been pulling through nicely, I'm even more happy to announce that I have finally, with certainty, secured two internships for this summer.

I'll be back in NYC, this time staying at the FIT dorms, rather than the NYU dorms, so I will be definitely offering some points of comparison for the two this summer. Hopefully I'll also feature my room in a post so any other potential interns will know what to expect of FIT. I'll be talking more about my internships themselves as well, for those who are interested in going into publishing on either the publishing side or literary agency side.

I'm currently working on creating a post on how I generally go through the summer internship search for you young 'uns who want to know the process, but I'm gonna jump into my own personal story on internship applications for now, because it's so chaotic.

MY CRAZY INTERNSHIP STORY

As early as December, I started applying to nearly every place that popped up on my radar. Junior year is considered the most important internship year, because it leads into an actual job later—hopefully—so I wanted to get somewhere good. For reference, by early April (when I finally stopped), I had applied to about 50 internships. Yeah. That's a ton. But, for what it's worth, I applied to a lot of things I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get, but didn't want to miss out on—on the off chance that I would end up getting it.

I heard back (positively) from about eight of them, I think, in terms of whether they offered me an interview and/or the job. I'm not sure how many of those would have offered me a position, since I secured my two finalized internships around the same time that I was interviewing with the others, and had to withdraw my application from most of them.

The first internship I heard back from, which is one of the places I'll be working this summer, I heard from in late March and interviewed with on April 1. That's how late it was (for your reference—I'm certainly not complaining). The second one (that I have secured) I interviewed with on April 2. Some of the places I applied to in February reached out in April, but the other half of the ones I heard back from were ones I had applied to about a month or few weeks before. Proof that you should not stop applying until you have a job!

To put it simply: It was a tense and panicked process, especially when it came down to the interviews. I was completely committed to the first internship, which I think is a great fit and includes some really wonderful people to work with, when the second one offered me a position as well. I was pretty sure that that second one would be able to offer me a two-day internship, since in the interview, they remarked on how they usually have multiple interns who are never around at the same time (since they only have one desk). Doing the math in my head, I assumed that meant one person came in on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, while the other came in on Thursday and Friday. When I expressed this a little after my acceptance, they seemed taken aback and uncertain of whether I'd actually be able to work there if I couldn't commit to three days. On both ends we were surprised. I had assumed one intern would have to come in only on two days (and that intern could be me), and they had assumed I could definitely do three days (which, to be fair, I had never disputed because in my mind I kept reading "three days" as "two or three days"). Although technically I had both of the internships already, because I had accepted the positions via email, I was afraid that the second one might fall through and continued to keep discussion open with another place, which I had a great interview with.

Ultimately, the second place said they could make due with two days as long as they were Monday and Tuesday, and then I had to email the first place to be sure that was alright. By unfortunate coincidence, my boss at the first place was out of the office! That really set me on edge, because I knew I couldn't wait to respond to the second place, which I felt I had already offended by not being clear about when I was available. Because we hadn't established days at the first place yet, I took a leap in assuming it would be alright if I worked Wednesday through Friday, since I didn't feel like I had a right to ask the second place to consider changing the days. In this dubious chunk of time after I agreed that Monday and Tuesday would be fine at the second place, I was offered a few more interviews and an internship, and although I wasn't certain of how things were about to turn out, I figured it would be most honest for me to turn them down, even though there was the potential that I might be available for them, if the second place fell through again. (I had already signed for the first place and was completely committed.)

Imagine my horror when my boss from the first place emailed back and said that they had only half-days on Fridays during the summer and would rather I come in on Monday through Wednesday. Fortunately, because that boss is amazing and understanding (I've already decided that I like her a lot!), she said not to worry and that we'd figure out the hours later, and I could come in Wednesday through Friday. And that's the end of my internship panic story—thank god it was a happy ending.

(Did I mention that I got a phone screen interview with Disney/ABC News?! Unfortunately, due to my lack of TV news experience, I think, I've yet to hear back from them. Actually, I should probably just withdraw that application now. I believe their website has that option.)

NOW ON TO THE LESS STRESSFUL THINGS...

In these final weeks of classes, papers, and exams, I'm going to start up my DD posting, begin making YouTube videos again (on my singing channel, vlog channel, and with a mostly-girl gaming group on my gaming channel), and celebrate my one million views on my aforementioned singing channel (talk about a shameless plug)!

In terms of fun things, I haven't had much time to keep up with my TV shows (Game of Thrones and Orphan Black especially) and the new upcoming shows that I want to start to watch (iZombie), but I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos from the Holy Trinity (including The Grace Helbig Show, which is on E!) and have breezed through the entirety of The Office on Netflix. It's been an oddly productive semester.

(OH, this totally doesn't fit anywhere but I'm going to throw it in here: I have Taylor Swift tickets!!!! Here I come, MetLife Stadium! I hope she brings her cats, but also I think that would be a terrible idea.)

Anyway, expect new posts soon, especially as the summer begins, and I hope that your semesters (or lives in general) are going well! I will probably keep you updated on my non-DD YouTube endeavors as well, because at this site's core, it is a blog, and I better be blogging. See you next week, if not sooner!

For more, check out Tia's new blog!

Much love,

T.