With every Commencement, we bid farewell to our senior intern. We are going to miss Amy Mrotek ’16! We’re going to miss her skills, her creativity, her ever-willing presence in the office. Most of all, though, we will miss her wonderful writing voice – strong, authentic and uniquely hers. In this guest post, Amy herself bids farewell to her time with us. Life, she says, as she contemplates her own next chapter … life is a lot like editing.
De Pere’s storm siren tests are blaring outside as I write this. It’s funny, contrasting the hyperactive alarms against my quiet intern desk tucked inside the office.
It parallels my own second-semester-senior-year demeanor: Calm (usually) on the outside, alarm bells a-blastin’ within. Because senior year means graduation, and graduation means the widening, knife-sharp jaws of adulthood.
Luckily I think I enter the mouth of the beast equipped with more than just crossed fingers.
I’ve nabbed three internship experiences across my four college years, each tasting a different slice of the writing pie. From technical writing to book manuscript editing to freelance posts for a guitar blog, I’ve been able to try out different voices, learning a lot along the way.
Two years under my belt as a writing and publications intern here in the office of communication places this as my longest-held writing position. That span of time lends itself to the most knowledge absorbed – and the most experiences to reflect upon.
People come first. There’s a notion out there that writers sit hunchbacked over a computer, fingers flying word after word, ignoring social interaction at the behest of their craft. And while the actual production of a piece does, of course, include some image of this, it doesn’t color the whole. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever written – from an @St. Norbert article on “ugly” Christmas sweaters to an alumni note – that didn’t involve interpersonal contact. Fact-checking phone calls to full-blown feature interviews lend the real pulse to a story, not the “hunchbacked” writer. This isn’t humble misgivings, it’s the truth. Our stories are communal.
Shed the comfort zone. As someone who’s self-diagnosed herself as allergic to routine, I grow tired sitting in the same seat in class – much less checking off identical shift tasks day after day. Pushing your work comfort zone means breaking that routine and communicating that desire to your manager. During my one-on-one meetings with Susan, we strategically go over new undertakings: a sports piece this time around rather than a campus life feature; optimizing social media tags; even off-campus archival work. This mix-and-match approach has meant not only do I expand my writing portfolio, I’ve pushed my professional marketability.
Life is a lot like editing an article. Bear with me here: I like words. I like ideas. I like talking to people about words and ideas. When I sit down to write, I find I tend to, well, ramble. My mind gets tugged by the wind, going this way and that, trying to funnel everything I find relevant, curious and attention-grabbing into a piece. Not to mention the stylistic and editorial words sneaking their way in but contributing nothing more than linguistic puff.
But as we learn through maturing, there’s only so much time in a day – and room in an article – to do and say the things that need to be done and said. You make your mark count; you chisel and focus your energy on the activities that matter. It’s as simple and hard as that, but the end results gleam all the brighter.
