I try my best to emphasize that I am very much an inexperienced student simply trying to break into the wonderful world of advertising. That being said, I think I’ve seen some interesting things in my short time as a college student trying to break through.

Let me first start off by mentioning that I’m currently in college and not pursuing a degree in advertising. While I’d like to say that it’s because of some bold gesture to go against the grain, it’s 99% because my school doesn’t have an advertising degree.

The other 1% is that I love my degree in graphic communication.

With this, a lot of what I’ve learned about advertising has been on my own time. I’m not complaining, though, because I love ads. I will say that trying to figure out how to get started was intimidating as all hell. When the search began to try to get some experience, a combination of wonder and intimidation fell over me. I couldn’t get over how creative some of the agencies were, and the idea of being a part of the industry was extremely exciting. I also knew the competition for internships would be fierce. That’s when the anxiety really hit me. How was I going to be able to prove I could keep up? I had no real design experience, no “book,” nothing to show that I was worth listening to at all. All I knew was that I loved ads and wanted to get started.

When I started contacting local boutique shops, I knew that any response I got would be out of pity. I was fine with that. I had tons of questions and wanted to start getting answers. As a few companies started to respond to me (and many more not respond at all), I found an agency that had a cool atmosphere, good clients, and best of all: responded to my emails.

I latched onto it.

I let my point of contact know I was trying to get an internship down the road and wanted to learn as much as possible. He seemed willing to give me a chance, and thus began a constant e-mail relationship where I learned more about the agency. The guy seemed to like me, and I was under the impression that if I played my cards right, I might be able to score a summer internship based off sheer determination. A goal that wasn’t entirely far-fetched, but probably less realistic than I would have hoped.

As my relationship with this agency matured, I continued not to hear anything back from most other places. It was discouraging, but I kept trying to keep other doors open.

By late April, it was time to apply for my summer internship. I read and reread my coverletter until I finally sent in my app. Days passed until I heard that I had shown enough potential to move onto the next round. To really show off my creativity, I had to make a creative short film.

Keep in mind, this was a prompt that was given in mid-May, due late-May, and reviewed by even-later-May. All for an internship that started June 1.

I freaked.

But I wanted the job, so I hustled. I tried to figure out a video camera enough to show off my work, and was pretty happy with the final result.

With the click of my trackpad, I sent in the video, which was the apex of a six-month e-mail relationship that I hoped would make me an intern. Long story short, I’m not a “creative strategy intern.” I eventually got an email (two days after the internship would have started) stating that the video wasn’t what they wanted. I was confused. I knew that my video wasn’t the holy grail of videos, but I thought that with how much time I’d spent communicating with the company, I would have a good chance of sealing the deal? Apparently not.

I can’t be thankful enough for the experience, though. Yes, it was hard to have something that I worked so hard for not pan out, but I learned so damn much from the whole thing. I learned how to get a conversation started. I learned just how far persistence could take me. And, I learned that no matter how bad I “wanted it,” I needed to be able to actually prove my talents.

The day I got my rejection email was the day I started revamping my portfolio. The day I ordered Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!. The day I started contacting CDs for informational interviews. I realized that I wasn’t a failure, I just needed more practice.

After all this, I was contacted to do some freelance work for the agency that had originally rejected me. It was much less official, much less work, and very much unpaid. But, I feel like it was because of my persistence that they threw me a bone and gave me some work.

Now that I have the opportunity to start doing some work, I am grateful. I am excited. I am confident that I still have a lot to learn.