I really need to cut back on the caffeine. Last night I was standing with a mic, introducing former Googler, author, blogger, and life coach Jenny Blake in front of the crowded room and all I could think about was whether the anxiety I felt was just nerves and adrenaline, or the after effect of drinking copious amounts of black tea throughout the day. Last night was the NY Creative Interns One Year Anniversary Bash held at Wix Lounge with speakers Jacob Krupnick, Director of Girl Walk // All Day and Jenny Blake, author and blogger for Life After College. Along with speaking, I carried two hundred napkins, a video camera and tripod from SoHo to Flatiron, make the hors d’oeuvre table come to life, and had some fabulous fashionista insist on taking a photo of my new Sam Edelman’s. All around, it was the epitome of what it takes to help put together an event in Manhattan during the holiday season.
NY Creative Interns is essentially a community dedicated to enabling college students and recent grads to find internships, mentors, and inspiration through networking and meetups. In addition we are a resource for companies and organizations, helping to alleviate the interview process by creating cool, unique, atmospheres for creatives to interact and connect. NY Creative Interns is a concept the wonderful Emily Miethner and I came up with when riding the train into the city for our internships senior year of undergrad. We always found ourselves swapping tips and sharing advice about interviewing, the importance of having a social presence online, and the proper way to format a resume. With Emily’s endless enthusiasm and drive, my creative vision and strategic insight, and the addition of two fantastic team members Community Manager Marny Smith and Design Director Monica DyBuncio, along with countless volunteers, we have achieved far more than we ever imagined in the first year with much more to come.
Emily and I are co-founders, but she has taken on the well-deserving role as president, while in the past few months I have had to take a step back and be less involved with the day-to-day tasks to run NYCi. Working at an advertising agency along with pursuing a career as a writer has left me with a schedule that sometimes doesn’t feel like my own to manage, and not being available for the responsibilities required was not fair for the rest of the team. Trying to help manage an organization that has no office and is still a “moon-lighting” gig for all of its team members is no easy task.
Emily has an uncanny ability to motivate as well as surround herself with people who feed off of her enthusiasm. Her calling is to bring people together. Mine requires more focus on my own individual work, since my greatest need in life is self-expression (as self-serving as that is). I want to go farther with writing and finally get back to doing art on a regular basis. I need to see if it can blossom into a career as well. Jenny talked about following big dreams last night, no matter how impossible they seem. While NY Creative Interns is sure to have great success and I will always be a part of it, I still have dreams that I’ve had since I was a child. If I don’t try to pursue them, I will surely regret it years down the road. It was hard telling Emily a few months ago that I couldn’t be as involved with NYCi as I wanted to be, but I know she understands that sometimes the dreams that seem the most impossible are the ones worth pursuing.
My Name Is Reb 
“Mine requires more focus on my own individual work, since my greatest need in life is self-expression (as self-serving as that is). ” I feel the same way! I feel like it’s selfish too, but maybe it’s not. Maybe we are just trying to utilize our gifts and not using them would be a waste!
I’m struggling with pursuing my dreams too. I think one of the hardest parts is prioritizing, as you’re talking about here. I agree, we have to keep at it though. Great post! Thanks for the inspiration!