Kate Sheppard

We had a couple of speakers in class today, one of which was Kate Sheppard, IC Alum & currently a writer for Mother Jones magazine. Kate was giving us advice, knowing that entering the job market during these times is very scary. Though most of the class, including myself, has another year to go before we're dragged into the "real world," it made me think. Even though I could never imagine myself writing about the environment, or about cars, or business, I have to START imagining that because I have to willing to take whatever I can get at this point. Kate was a politics and journalism major at Ithaca and now writes about environmental policy. Her last piece of advice to us was to not be afraid of writing for a trade magazine and to have an open mind about it. I'll admit, I don't want to find myself in 5 years writing about oil or gas, but I guess we all have to start somewhere. A friend of my mom's has told me several times that her daughter was a journalist and pictured herself at the New York Times and is writing for a medical magazine. Not ideal. I don't think that I will really wrap my head around writing about one of those subjects (that doesn't really interest me at all) until I actually have to, but Kate's advice helped because at least I know now that it is a very real possibility. I just hope that like her, I will end up liking what I am writing about, because that would make it that much better.