Hi there! You know me. I’m Sam, and I write for the Odyssey, like, every week. And I love it, so I’m pursuing a major in journalism at Elon University. I recently added a minor in multimedia authoring because nowadays, you can’t just take pen to paper and expect to get a job — it takes more than that.

Well, actually, it takes less. Fingers to keyboards are technically less, right? Since your fingers are attached to you? Whatever.

So, here’s how it happened.

February of my freshman year was full of excitement. I’d just joined a sorority on campus (shout-out to my sisters in ΣΣΣ), the spring semester was brand new and the crisp end-of-winter air was re-energizing. It was time to get my butt into gear, after a long winter term of what I can only compare to hibernation. Even though summer loomed in the far distance, it was the talk of the town and, therefore, the only thing on my mind. So I did what most college students do around this time of year: I started looking for internships.

For most of us, there’s no step-by-step program set in place to magically land us an internship. A lot of freshmen turn to their superiors (parents, teachers, upperclassmen) for advice and sometimes those superiors are the key to finding a job. But for others, it’s not so easy.

First of all, nobody wants to hire a freshman (that’s not actually true, but it’s definitely harder for younger candidates to get jobs). Second of all, mom and dad aren’t always going to have the connections you need, and they’re even less likely to have the connections you want. If you’re willing to settle for an internship outside of your interests then, by all means, take dad up on his friend’s cousin’s sister’s co-worker's desk job opening. But if you want to do something stimulating and relevant to your career interests, then that’s not the route to go. You have to do it on your own.

In my case, my parents both had leads on interesting internships. They weren’t within my major by any means, and they weren’t exactly what I had planned to do for the summer, but I was having a lot of trouble finding a position I truly wanted. So I prepared myself to settle, dreading the weeks ahead, during which I would almost certainly be sitting at a desk under fluorescent lights for eight tedious hours a day.

Then, I discovered a website called Ed2010 (attention all communication majors), thanks to the insight of a more experienced friend. This website is geared towards students and professionals who are looking for jobs and internships, paid and unpaid, part-time and full-time, in the field of journalism. Lucky me, right? So I applied for ten internships I found on Ed2010, and anxiously refreshed my inbox.

For eight weeks.

I didn’t get a single interview, phone call or even an email back. From any of them.

What was wrong with me? I’m a good writer and I specialize in cover letters, so I figured it probably wasn’t that. Maybe it was my age, my lack of real experience or the fact that I didn’t write for the school newspaper yet. But I guess we’ll never know.

Defeated, I tried to ignore what was probably the biggest failure of my freshman career. I stopped checking the website for job listings, ignored my mom’s texts to apply for more positions, and halfheartedly networked with my parents’ friends, in the hopes that one of them would take pity on me and offer me a desk job.

A few weeks into this, my mom got sick of watching me party, travel and do essentially nothing, while my other friends were out making money by landscaping, babysitting and waiting tables. So she forced me to try Ed2010 one more time.

I reluctantly logged onto my computer and began searching for five more internships. Eventually, I stumbled across one for a website that connects Instagram micro-influencers with brands and companies that might want to develop business relationships with them. Upon reading the job description, I got butterflies in my stomach. It sounded like something I’d written myself, and the responsibilities of an intern in that field were right up my alley. So I crafted a witty cover email, attached my resume and anxiously refreshed my inbox, feeling waves of déjà vu wash over me as the minutes went by.

Like, 11 of them.

Fewer than 15 minutes later, I’d already gotten three responses to my applications, asking for phone and in-person interviews for the positions I had applied for. And one of them was the one.

I went to an in-person interview, which led to a phone interview, which led to an internship and I am now a very happy girl commuting to New York City three days a week for no pay. And I love every second of it. Every single day, I am grateful that my parents pushed me to do more because now, I’m doing what I love and loving what I do. Hopefully, my story will encourage you, your friend, your child or whoever to go out there and look for something they love because settling for something you aren’t obsessed with just isn’t worth it. Good luck out there.