Morgan Phelps Just Flat Out Does More Than You
Eighteen credit hours in one semester is enough to make any student want to rip their hair out, but try adding a multitude of professional jobs and freelance work on top of that already busy schedule and many students would be begging for mercy—not Morgan Phelps. At 21, this very recent Columbia grad spent her college years working hard to maintain her almost perfect GPA (3.8) while gaining real-world experience and simultaneously stock piling her portfolio full of writing clips.
Currently she is employed by Rothschild Investment Corporation as an executive assistant (not your typical job for a college student), she writes for the Student Loop as well as a biweekly DVD review column for the Rockford Register Star's weekly GO Now supplement and contributes weekly event listings for Flavorpill Chicago.
Sounds like a lot? Well, it is, but Phelps hopes the long hours and sleepless nights will come to fruition when she lands that first good-paying job as a journalist. “I consider myself a good writer, but if I don't get my work published, it doesn't matter how great my writing is,” she says, “Unfortunately for student journalists, you're probably not going to get paid until you're an established writer and you're not going to be established until you get published. As a consequence of this viscous circle, I've done alot of free writing work as a student journalist.”
According to Phelps,internships are also the key to breaking into any competitive field, and in the current job market every little bit helps. “I had a story I wrote for my trade magazine class published in Chicago Agent,and they want to use me in the future as a freelancer,” she says, “I would havenever gotten this opportunity if I wasn't willing to be published for free.”
From day one, Columbia has taught you that ‘connections’ are most important when looking for jobs and jumpstarting your career, and Phelps couldn’t agree more. There are always opportunities, but students need to always be ready to take the initiative, Phelps says. “One of my professors helped me get a biweekly column in my hometown newspaper,” she says, “If you prove yourself to be a good journalist in class, your professors will keep you in mind when opportunities arise.”
Most importantly, students have to be willing to put in the extra grunt work and let the satisfaction of seeing their name in print be good enough until they are established enough to start getting paid for their work.“Your writing isn't worth a lot of money at the start of your journalism career, but hopefully, the joy of seeing your byline gets you by until the checks start rolling in,” she says.
– Liz Olszta
Magazine Journalism