Section Toolbar: Homepage News Sports B-Section Editorial/Op-ed Features

Issue date: 11/13/08

At one point last year, one of my classmates and fellow Chronicle staffers stood in our very office and mockingly proclaimed, "Students don't come to Hofstra to be journalists. They come here because they think they want to for magazines!" As someone who has put a lot of hard work into the three magazine editorial intern positions I've held over the past two years, I resented that statement.

Back when I was a sophomore sending my résumé to nearly every opening in sight, I was frequently advised not to chase jobs at publications that I love to read because it would likely ruin the experience for me. My job at Glamour magazine was initially just supposed to be a summer-long, unpaid internship for a journalism credit requirement. I never expected it to turn into a going-on-two-years-long freelance editing and reporting gig.

At around this time last year, I wrote about my experience in attending the magazine's Women of the Year (WOTY) Awards, an annual event in which the magazine honors approximately 17 women who have made a significant impact in the world, in areas like education and philanthropy to medicine and politics. Last year's WOTY ceremony was one of the first moments in which I realized just how valuable my experience at Glamour has been and just how fortunate I am to have a job that I love at a publication with a message of empowerment that I truly believe in and stand behind.

I was lucky enough to be invited again for this year's ceremony, which took place Monday night at Carnegie Hall. I walked out with the same reaction of complete awe and inspiration at the amazing things the honorees are doing. As honoree and Olympic gold medalist Misty May-Treanor (who was honored along with teammate Kerri Walsh) put it, "I can't wait to wake up tomorrow, because I feel like a changed woman just sitting here tonight."

In her opening speech, Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive noted that these awards are meant to leave us asking ourselves, "If we don't speak up, who will? If we don't act, who will?" She pointed out that President-elect Barack Obama's victory last week is the perfect example of why you should never let anyone tell you "that'll never happen"-because it just did. Presenter and 2002 winner Katie Couric later pointed out that the real beauty of the evening is that it leaves everyone in attendance wondering, "what more can I do?"

I'll admit that I was skeptical at what supermodel-turned-talk-show-host Tyra Banks had accomplished to deserve being honored with the likes of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and environmentalist Jane Goodall. I could relate to Banks' honesty in saying that she was "shaking a little bit, but shaking it off" at the prospect of simply being in the presence of all of these groundbreaking women.

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