A typical morning started about 20 minutes before my first class began. It was a ritual of throwing on a pair of pants, usually a sweatshirt and maybe some flip-flops or sneakers, depending on the weather. I grabbed my bag and was off to whatever two or three classes I had to learn about things I would need to know in the “real world,” before heading back to the dorm and calling it a day.

So you can imagine the shock when with two years of college almost finished I landed myself in internship at ABC News in New York City. Within a matter of weeks, after shopping for “real people” clothes, I was off to the city to figure out what this “real world” was all about. I was nervous, but knew the experience would be well worth the stress.

Just like many other college students across the country, I had to make that transition from a laid-back college student to an ambitious business worker. I suddenly found myself in high heels and professional clothes every day. I had to give up my five-minute walk to classes for an hour commute between taking the train and the subway to work. I didn’t show up there to sit in the back of the room and answer the occasional question— I was suddenly transported from a collegiate intellectual to the bottom of the corporate chain. After the initial shock, I managed to adjust and began to learn what working full-time actually meant.

At ABC News, my supervisor and many of the executives who ran seminars for interns were very helpful. Through them I got the opportunity to work one of the Good Morning America’s Summer Concerts, where the country music group Sugarland performed. Not only did I get to meet the band, but I also got to be involved in the whole production of the affair. I got to see the anchors in action and listen in to the feeds from the producers to the anchors.

After talking to one of the executive producers after a seminar he ran for all the interns, I got the opportunity to work with Good Morning America Weekend Edition in the control room. I watched and helped run through the entire production and sat behind the executive producers. The best part was getting to see the constant interaction between the producers and anchors and the split-second decisions about what to cut in order to keep the production to half an hour. The anxiety of the production in Times Square was beyond exciting for me.

I found out from my internship faculty advisor there was a recent graduate from my college working right across the hall from me at World News Tonight. I contacted him and set up a time where I could head up to the control room for the show and watch the production happen. As he was showing me the daily routine, the steam explosion in New York City began breaking on many of the news channels. It was a race to break into the already-live show and insert a piece about it before the other news networks got to it. To say it was chaos is an understatement, but watching live breaking news happen was a great experience.

ABC made sure all the interns from different departments interacted and networked with each other. I used these social opportunities to figure out what everyone else was doing and if that was something I would be interested in doing in the future. I also used them as contacts to set up job shadows with their department to learn everything I could from the people they were working here.

Even though the hours were already longer than any college student is used to, I took on any opportunities to do extra work or help out other people. I did my best to continually build my credibility with my supervisor. This led to me getting to participate in more of the major projects. As an intern it became my responsibility to take the action to do things, if I didn’t then I could have spent the summer under the radar and no one would have noticed.

I learned that everyone in the business world had to start off somewhere too, and although they seem intimidating, many had once been interns themselves. Usually, if I took the first step to ask questions and strike up conversations I created a whole new room of opportunities for myself. People are willing to help you because they might have had someone to help them or wish that they had.

For me, the internship was about proving to myself and to the people around me that I could be a part of a specific field or business. It was affirmation that this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing, and it was a great motivation to learn as much I can while I’m at college.