‘Tis the season. The snow is almost off the ground and most of the freshman fellowships for summer work were due in December. Still, I’d love to go to a fellowship-writing workshop – just not the one on that particular Thursday. Or that Tuesday. Or that Saturday… wait, that’s all of them? Help! I want to workshop! What else can I workshop?

My RESUME! Genius! Now, where is that old resume of mine… aha! Let’s see what I’ve got here – looks like a cover letter:

“To the placement officers of Safeway…”

OK. Not the best start. Especially since I didn’t get that job. What’s the hardest, most impressive thing I’ve done since then? I got into Yale! Genius! I mean, what could all the other applicants possibly have accomplished in the last four years of their lives? Especially those Yale College seniors – they were probably at Toad’s every Wednesday. I feel sorry for the Bridgewater and Goldman Sachs recruiters who have to weed out that sort of chaff to get to people like me.

So what did I do with my first semester of college, with all the limitless possibilities Yale has to offer? Financial… no. Leadership… no. Tech start-up… I would have taken Intro to Programming, but it clashed with DS. Writing… yes! Perfect! Lots of publications! Blogs, print, long, short – I totally have a skill set!

Now let me find those last ten emails from the Yale Journalism Initiative; at nine possible internships per newsletter, that’s…

(Four hours later.)

Recent interns have included recent graduates and graduate students… Nine-month international training program… Full-time position… Preferably, experience on a major news website – wait, does the Globalist count? It’s about the whole world! People read us all the way from Blue State on Wall to Blue State on York – ugh.

Maybe I’m approaching this all wrong. It’s time to apply some logic to this thing – that’s why I’m in DS, right?

First Premise: To obtain an internship, one must first possess experience.

Second Premise: To obtain experience, one must first serve as an intern.

Conclusion: “To the placement officers of Safeway…”