Living the writer’s life

After having to navigate my sophomore year during distance learning and missing everything from Fiesta Fridays to in-person finals week, the last thing I wanted was more time on Zoom. But this summer, Zoom allowed me to participate in an incredible internship at Girls’ Life Magazine (GL).

GL is an online and print magazine dedicated to “informing, inspiring and entertaining girls around the globe” and is geared toward a tween audience. The magazine selected more than a dozen college and high school interns from a competitive applicant pool to write articles and produce social media content during the summer. My fellow interns and I also participated in college and career planning workshops and bonding activities.

After a week of training Zooms in June, I was able to start writing. I had a lot of fun working on my first batch of articles, despite it being challenging to get the hang of the website logistics.  I worked with another intern from start to finish on one of the articles and we hit it off right away. I spent days brainstorming, writing and revising. It was more than worth it when I saw my first article, which detailed engaging activities for girls who can’t drive yet, on the front of the website on June 23.

Once I got used to how the magazine worked, I had a fantastic time. I conducted interviews with  young actress Sky Alexis and a mental health professional, inspired girls to learn to code and create their own bath bombs and dramatically improved my writing. I had countless laughs with the GL team on Slack, an app used by journalists to communicate. I even surprised myself by getting out of my comfort zone and creating social media graphics and content.

During the 10-week internship, I explored other aspects of journalism such as advertising, transcribing interviews and taking and uploading photos. One of my favorite experiences was working with GL’s Bestie Book Club, which allowed me to channel my inner bookworm.

Although the internship was virtual, the experience was one of the best summers I’ve had. I will take full advantage of the skills I learned at GL in my new role as this year’s Online Editor-in-Chief of The Pearl Post.