It’s around 100 degrees in the middle of June, and I’m sweating like a pig and staring at a man wearing a jetpack equipped with Oscar Mayer hot dogs. Welcome to the start of my third week at Ad Age.

 

When I first found out I’d been placed at Ad Age, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect the hot dog jetpack man. But I came from nothing close to an advertising background — ads were those annoying things I paid Spotify to get rid of. It wasn’t my first time journalistically foraying into an unknown world, though: I figured since I’d spent the past year apprenticing at a Meredith quilting magazine, I could handle just about anything.

 

My editors at Ad Age wasted no time throwing me into the advertising industry. I was immediately writing stories, creating videos (something I’d always failed miserably at before but actually managed to enjoy and find a slight talent for by the end of the internship), and reporting on breaking news. I attended industry events and interviewed CEOs and CMOs. The first time my work was featured in our widely read “Morning Briefing” newsletter, I felt like I’d “made it.”

 

My ASME summer demanded adaptability, curiosity, and creativity. Our intern lunches with top editors of major magazines were incredible, and the advice given during each one was invaluable. Perhaps the best thing I got out of my ASME summer was a more definitive idea of what I want to do once I’m pushed out of my college nest and born into the big, bad “real world.”

 

I went into this experience with the ultimate goal of determining whether the magazine industry truly is right for me, whether New York is the place I need to be. It is on both counts. And even for those who found it’s not quite the right fit, ASME gave us a hell of a summer. And you never know where it’ll take you — maybe even on the shores of the East River watching an Oscar Mayer jetpack superhero.