When I came to college, I was bursting at the seams with ambition. My plan was to receive all A's and B's, be a part of at least two organizations, be a member of the dance team AND company, get an internship by sophomore year, and graduate in four years with a magazine job lined up in New York. That plan failed miserably. I had horrible grades my freshman year and by second semester of my sophomore year, I flunked out. Between working two jobs and being bedridden with depression, I had no time or energy to be a part of any organizations. The dancers at the school were so competitive that my auditions had me walking away with nothing but a record-low self-esteem. I was this close to giving up, finishing my degree at a community college, and settling for an entry-level position in my microscopic hometown in Kansas.
But then my ambition came back. If I was going to write for a major magazine in New York, I had to get my act together. I took a semester off from KU to raise my GPA with online classes through a community college. I joined KU's chapter of Her Campus, a national online magazine for college women. I was even fortunate enough to be asked to write a piece for Cosmopolitan.com. I started doing absolutely everything I had the power to in order to get myself where I wanted to be. I figured that with all my success and hard work, I was bound to get back on track with my original goals.
As it turns out, I hadn't recovered completely from my first two years of bad grades. When I met with my advisor to put together my senior year schedule, I came to the grueling realization that I am not going to graduate on time. I'll be set back anywhere from a summer to a semester--either way, not in the four years I was planning on. Not to be discouraged, I decided to make the most of it by applying for the summer internship of my dreams at Cosmopolitan. If I had to get summer credits, I might as well get them from a cats-and-abs-filled office in New York City. When I heard back that my application was too late, I was absolutely crushed. Girls around me were writing for Elite Daily, interning for Seventeen and Cosmo, reporting for local newspapers, being hired by Her Campus's national team--and here I was, sitting behind my laptop, scrolling through everyone else's success and feeling more inadequate than an Instagram post with less than ten likes.
Now that internship application season is over, and the pressure of scrambling to find a summer lease in New York City is off my shoulders, I'm finally beginning to realize that maybe this isn't the end of the world. Those girls working those dream jobs have connections that I don't. Everyone has their own network and I can't compare my experiences and professional networks to those of others. I was rejected by five internship programs, but I also threw my applications together last minute and did a half-ass job. I'm not in the same shoes as my peers because I'm not putting in the same effort to the same people that they are--and that's okay! I have a job that I love, I have raised my GPA from a 0.48 to a 3.00 (not an easy feat) and I am putting more passion and dedication into a new internship application process than I ever did for the others. I am exactly where I need to be, even if it's not necessarily where I want to be.
Because that goal, that burning desire to work for a #GirlBoss like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, is fueling my every move from now on. When I see girls my age tweeting pictures of themselves in front of the Cosmopolitan office with "First day of the internship!", I don't throw myself a pity party. I write more contribution pieces, I apply for more internships, I research as much as I can about potential future employers. Don't stress out because you're not where you thought you'd be five years ago. Don't give up because your peers are ahead of you. Let your competition be your motivation. They are where you want to be. The only thing stopping you from joining them is the idea you keep telling yourself that you're not as experienced, or not as talented. You are. You will end up exactly where you want to be as soon as you start working like you want to be there.
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