North Carolina. Those words mean very different things and provoke different feelings depending on who you say them to. Some people — mostly ignorant Northerners — believe that North Carolina is home to nothing but rednecks and unintelligent wastes of space with two teeth. However, people who have lived here can say that this state has a great deal to offer — beaches, mountains, nice cities, semi-decent shopping and the birth of the Krispy Kreme corporation.
I used to be one of those people that defended this state as more than just a 24/7 hillbilly reunion. Unfortunately, I made a mistake. Not about the hillbilly thing, because we ain’t no hillbillies, but about the opportunities one is exposed to here. I discovered something over the summer — something disturbing. If you want to be successful to the point of jet-setting around the world, meeting fascinating people and being pushed to accomplish unthinkable goals, it may be impossible to do so by staying here.
This past spring I decided to look into interning for the summer in a field that would give me a better understanding of journalism. With only a year left until I am pitched into the workforce like a baby bunny thrown to a pack of rabid weasels, I knew I had very little time to pinpoint my career goals.
So, I sent in an application to a local news station, thinking that would be a great place to start. A couple of weeks later, I received an e-mail congratulating me on becoming their new intern.
My first day went like this: Ring bell to get into TV station building, girl opens door and asks “And who are you?” I tell her, and she looks confused. She says “Well, you can just sit at the desk with me and watch me talk on the phone.” I think, “Am I supposed to get her coffee, or will she tell me?” I sit at a desk until noon, constantly asking people if there is anything I can do, always getting “No, not right now” as an answer. I go to lunch; come back; girl from the desk looks at me like I’m Satan’s daughter just in from Hell. Then, after sitting for a few more hours, I go home and look forward to my next day.
I left thinking, don’t interns usually have some sort of schedule or list of tasks to be completed during a day? I was so confused, so frustrated and ridiculously tired. The internship went on like this for about a week before I had had enough and decided to speak with the intern coordinator. He proceeded to tell me that part of his job was creating an internship program for the station. It was a surreal conversation. As soon as he said he had created a program, he immediately started to sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown as I sat there in a daze wondering how sitting at a desk was a program.
I decided that desk sitting was not my forte, so I began trolling around the producers’ desks waiting for table scraps — i.e., something to write. It took about a sentence for me to realize that writing was the gateway to fun at the station. I wrote as much as I could, teamed up with a special projects producer, went out on shoots, made interviews, conducted interviews, met people — everything was finally coming together.
But it still wasn’t enough. I was bored. I talked to a friend of mine who was interning in New York for the summer. He told me that he was scheduled to interview Nicolas Cage and was clubbing at night in Times Square with celebrities. Meanwhile, I was in Raleigh interviewing Sammy Two-Teeth, owner of some run-down shack that needed to be condemned, who is complaining of flooding. Who did I piss off?
It’s a trade-off, I guess. We get the beach and the mountains, but not the limitless opportunity. My internship this summer taught me that to achieve the type of success I described earlier, I have to be willing to leave this beautiful state. Even though it is home to such successes as Krispy Kreme and Sara Lee, there is not much here for a journalist. Bring on the weasels!
E-mail Meghan at [email protected]