Colleen Stein

And so here I am. Back at SDSU for year number five of my college career. In the midst of playing catch-up with the university’s cache of core credits, I find myself a senior still lacking two classes, preventing me from graduating with a B.S. in journalism. But the part I am uneasy about, the minor detail that creates in my head a whirl of frustration and angst, is the small fact that even once this fifth and final semester winds up, I still cannot graduate. I need an internship.

Since January, I scrambled to print out resumes, copy off writing samples and scrounge up photos so I could send out application packets to every hiring publisher within a 100-mile radius. My goal was to secure an internship for the summer. I was determined to get the experience and credits I would need to plunge into the cold, ruthless world of mass communication`.

But my plans fell through. I got a few interviews here and there. Employers considered me for a good five minutes before tossing my samples in the trash, but no one had enough audacity to hire me on as an intern. So I did what any college student would do. I moved back home and pissed the summer down my leg by smoking and drinking all night and sleeping all day.

I spent all three of those hot and windy months renting movies, writing from time to time and reading very little.

As the nights grew colder and my partying crowd began packing up to go back to their universities, I felt the chilly, foreboding presence of fall semester standing two inches behind me. Although I didn’t know what use it would be going back to college for those four credits when I knew even places like Mobridge and Volga would have nothing to do with me, I found myself packing up and setting out toward the mirage of a college degree.

While I pretend to not understand why the local publishing world has swallowed me up and shat me out, the truth is that my writing is too opinionated and unorthodox to be used in the countryside tribunes.

I have to come to terms with the fact that success never comes easily for writers like me. That no one ever said going against the grain won’t give you slivers.

So why did I come back? Because whether or not I get my diploma, I have to figure out that it’s all about the journey and not whether I get there or not. It’s all about the people you meet on your way. And hell, writing will always be free and your piece of mind forever priceless.

And so here I am. Back at SDSU for year number five in my college career. I am a college anti-graduate and I shall write and be heard.

Colleen Stein is a jounalism major.