So, here’s the deal: I have been actively searching for a job since October. And when I say searching, I mean checking MediaBistro every single day, sending my resume to everyone and anyone that I might even consider working for, and networking like crazy. I haven’t really dropped the ball or stopped looking at any point, and I’ve put a lot of my focus and energy into making sure my clips, resumes and cover letters are the best they could have been.

But now it’s April and I literally have zero offers. At this point, I am officially the only one of my hotelie friends who has no idea where she will be living or what she will be doing six weeks from now. As my classmates sign leases and start checking out IKEA furniture for their new urban apartments, I’ve found myself staring out onto what is nothing more than just a big, black space that lies beyond May 25th. As one might imagine, it is probably — likely — one of the scariest things I’ve ever been faced with (hey, come on, I’m only 21). And yo, incoming freshmen: the prospect of moving far from home to come to college is nothing; just wait ’til you’re a Cornell senior!

It’s been no secret that the job market is especially tough for this year’s grads, the state of the economy is terrifying and media — a fairly unpredictable industry to begin with — is changing rapidly. People are getting slashed from newsrooms all over the country and, this summer, staffers at my favorite magazine (Jane) walked into work one day to find that they no longer had jobs — the publication had just folded. It happens.

I have been lucky enough to find something I’m passionate about (and trust me, I know that apathy is probably far worse than uncertainty or unemployment) and even more fortunate to have parents that support their children who have both decided to ditch their respective educational tracks to be Alaskan Mountain Guides (my brother) or writers (me). I consider myself fairly savvy when it comes to new media (and therefore employable), but — let’s get real, there’s a whole city full of equally-savvy, comparably-educated media types who can interview for, get hired into and start working at the job I’d want in the time it takes for me to even get down to New York and interview for the open position (let alone the time that would pass between my landing the job, finishing up my degree and moving out there).

I never thought it was going to be a piece of cake to use my Hotel School degree to pursue something outside the scope of a traditional hospitality or financial job, but JC — I would have never imagined it would be this difficult or emotional. I think I did a really, really crappy job of managing my expectations throughout this process (let’s just say sista got a little full of herself) . . . but, then again, when you’re at the most prestigious hospitality school in the world, you watch employers banging down your classmates’ doors, and so some part of you expects them to do the same to you. Also, more often than not, I found myself having to defend my decision to major in Hotel Administration in all my media and publishing interviews — and I wasn’t prepared for that, either.

Anyway, since I need to graduate, I have to pour my energy into my massive courseload and just stop searching now. I still have a couple of balls in the air, but, at this point, I can’t reach out to anyone new because, hey — if I do get a job and then have to stick around Ithaca for an extra semester just to finish my degree anyway, that job won’t do me too much good, will it? =) Today was the deadline that I’d set for myself; I promised myself that if I didn’t have a job offer by now, I would turn my full attention back to my schoolwork.

Right now, the plan is to move back to Dallas and look for jobs from Bromberg HQ. Word on the street is that the computers, printers and broadband connections are much faster there than they are in my yucky college apartment, anyway. If anything happens between now and then, you, my dear fabulous readers, will be the first to know.

I wish we could just focus on our senior year and not worry about post-graduation just yet. And, uh, I’m starting to get the feeling that I’m the only senior hotelie that feels this way.

And that’s probably because most of the hotelies in the class of 2008 have job offers by now!

I’m in a bit of a unique situation, I guess. I am taking a slightly alternative route through the Hotel Administration program (i.e. I don’t want to work in operations, finance, real estate or F&B) and have figured out what I want to do, but it’s not going to be as easy for me to get to where I want to be as it might be for, say, someone who wants to go into Hilton’s management training program.

That’s not to say that they haven’t worked their asses off– because believe me, they have– but they’ve got recruiters coming to campus and interviews between classes and they are wholly engrossed in the whole on-campus recruitment process. For them, this is a scary-exciting time and their futures are starting to take shape as they fly all over the country for second-round interviews and stuff. As these job offers are coming in, they’re moving closer to the “exciting” and away from the “scary.”

Right now, for me, it’s all scary. I have a bunch of different routes I can take– grad school, taking a year off, looking for entry-level editorial jobs…. right now I’m sort of considering making myself an internet celebrity overnight by finding a hot guy on the subway and making a website about him. I know this kind of thing happens to everyone their senior year and my situation is certainly not novel or particularly unfortunate, but the whole environment in the Hotel School is a bit different in that the vast majority of students graduate with more than one job offer.

And the talk of job offers and acceptances is everywhere. It’s at school; it’s at my apartment when I come home. I usually reply to people’s questions about my plans for next year with some variation on, “well, I’m not selling my soul to The Man for a huge salary like you are, that’s for damn sure” but I’m going to be honest here:

When a friend of mine told me he has just signed his offer and was going to be working for Goldman-Sachs, I found myself having the same reaction as everyone else: “oooooh, woooow…” Like, genuinely in awe. Why? I don’t care about banks. I don’t envy him. I never want to work for one of them and be just another suit among thousands of Ivy League grads. Or do I?

The truth is, I’m kind of jealous. When I tell people I’m following my dreams and wanting to do a bunch of stuff they’ve never heard of, I have to go into a spiel explaining what I want to do and why I think it’s cool even though I’ll be eating Ramen Noodles for a few years. But when someone throws out that they got an offer from Lehman, Goldman, UBS, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns– THEY never have to explain anything. People are just impressed. Wow. A bank. A Black Card. An expense account. A Blackberry. 16 hour days. AWESOME.

So yeah. I kind of am jealous of you right now. Maybe I won’t be jealous when I’m in love with what I do and am proud of the path I took to get there while your butt has molded to your chair and you’re pasty and going blind from never looking away from your Excel spreadsheet, but right now, I’d kill to be in your shoes.

Feel free to call me out next time I make fun of you for “selling your soul to The Man.” Also, congratulations to all my friends on your offers. I brag about you to my friends in Arts & Sciences.

Remember how I kind of decided in the middle of last year that I maybe sorta wanted to go to grad school for journalism? Did anyone care besides my dad who thought he was done paying exorbitant amounts of money for me to fail finance classes? Did everyone think I had a ridiculous burst of motivation and the whole thing was only going to last a week, kind of like the time I decided to be a vegetarian or like those 5 days I was a redhead?
Well, I am one step closer to actually going through with this: I have conquered the GRE’s. Well, I conquered them on the second attempt, anyway. The first attempt was not such a great success and the fact that it took me 30 minutes to write a paragraph in cursive before the test began was probably not the best of omens. Why do they have us write paragraphs in cursive? Anyone know? To verify that I’m not a robot? America (yes, the whole thing) made my mom write a paragraph in cursive when she received her American citizenship. I suppose ETS believes the GRE is akin to obtaining your American citizenship on the scale of important milestones in one’s life.
Anyway, the first time I took the GRE’s (this summer in Manhattan) I totally tanked on the math. It was more of a state-of-mind sort of thing, but to be honest, I hadn’t encountered the word ‘Pythagorean’ for at least four years prior to my taking on this whole GRE mess… so clearly, I had to do a little more studying. I came back to school with little optimism about the whole grad school scene. But right before classes started, I ventured into the bowels of Syracuse to take the GRE again and it seems that this time, I have showed the GRE what’s up. Yes yes, brothers and sisters around the country, feel free to put your Diet Cokes down and applaud.

Next mission: earn a GPA that is somewhat presentable– I’m not looking for Major League MVP status here, but at least something like a “Most Improved Player” award.

My $4.00 engagement ring was my best friend this summer.

My $4.00 engagement ring was no-fail skeevey-dude repellent at bars. If a skeevey guy approached me and started talking, I held up the ring, said I had a fiancee, and the skeevey dude would walk away. If the dude wasn’t skeevey, I’d hold up the ring, explain it was only there to ward off the skeevey dudes and that I didn’t think he could be classified as such… and he’d think I was cute and quirky (I think) and take it as a compliment.

And then there was the fake wedding.

I was assigned to scope out the Plaza Hotel’s competition. It’s not like I could just call the Mandarin, the St. Regis, the Pierre, or the Waldorf=Astoria and ask them for their wedding pricing and request that they fax a copy of their wedding menu over to the Plaza Hotel offices (duh)– so I had to think creatively.

So, clearly, I lived out half of many little girls’ dreams: I planned a ridiculously lavish wedding with absolutely no budget limitations… and without the whole committing-to-some-loser-for-the-rest-of-my-life part. Oh yes.

I quite enjoyed the whole thing, but the fake engagement ring really left a fugly green mark on my finger. My fake fiancee kind of sucked too– whenever I went to a property walkthrough to check out the ballroom space, he was, of course, always at work and couldn’t be bothered– he was a banking mogul, after all.

The Pierre Hotel Ballroom (where I’d have my fake wedding for $450 per person)

Check out my experience at The Pierre, which I wrote up for HotelChatter. I probably blew my cover when I requested a mini-cheeseburger station during the cocktail reception, but whatever. I had an awesome time.

Also, later on in the summer, HotelChatter dispatched me to the greatest launch party of all time: The Bryant Park Hotel’s release of their in-room sex toy menu, in partnership with swanky adult toystore the Pleasure Chest. Check out my experience at the soiree here.

The Bryant Park Hotel’s Cellar Bar

First of all, you KNOW it’s a bad situation when you’re first reunited with your classmates in the walk-in freezer at school, the coolness-oasis you’ve all flocked to in an attempt to regulate your body temperatures after hiking up from Collegetown to class.

Seriously. It’s been so hot that none of us can sleep, so hot none of us can stand to blow-dry our hair after we shower, and so humid that it doesn’t matter anyway because a blowout wouldn’t last 30 seconds out the door. So what we’ve got here at Cornell University is a population full of sweaty, shiny, tired kids with really bad hair. Aside from those unpleasantries, it’s good to be back at school.

I suppose I should talk about the summer. I was in Manhattan and it was lovely… but I was so incredibly, fall-off-the-face-of-the-earth busy that I could have been in the worst place on earth (the inside of a Croc) and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was working a Monday-Thursday internship at Great Performances, a catering and event planning company, had a job at Hotelchatter.com writing hotel industry news stories daily (which was FABULOUS, hello career of choice), and was doing a consulting job on the side.

So Great Performances… eh. I don’t know– catering and event planning within a larger organization? Not for me. The company is wonderful; they even have a farm in upstate New York where they grow their own produce and have started a program with PS-180 where they teach grade school kids how to cook with fresh ingredients and things (I participated in one of the programs and it was one of the highlights of the summer; also, I was on a farm, alert the press).

But I learned very, VERY quickly that catering in NYC is pretty serious. I don’t really want to get into details about what I didn’t like about the whole thing, but I learned a lot about what I don’t want to do– which is why we do these internships, right?– and I did get to do some cool stuff in the meantime: GP had TONS of high-end clients and I got to attend some pretty ritzy and fabulous events.

I had an issue with the footwear policy and was scolded many a time for wearing open-toed shoes to work. I mean, there is a huge kitchen attached to the offices where GP does all of their prep and recipe testing, so open-toed shoes were a no-no. But come ON… I’m not cooking. I only went in there for Diet Coke. I tried to strike a deal where I would promise not to go into the kitchen if I could wear my summery strappy sandals, but no dice.
During the workday, I was primarily working on the Plaza Hotel project, as GP is going to be doing all the catering for the event space once it reopens. The property has been closed for a long time for renovations, but it’s slated to be up and running in October/November of this year (it had BETTER be up and running, because there are insanely lavish events booked). I WISH I could tell stories about the new Plaza clients– oh my goodness; if these sensible, close-toed shoes could talk…

Anyway, it was a good experience and will never, EVER make the mistake of telling a client who is ready to drop $500,000 on an event that we don’t do Kosher catering (we do), and I now know to do everything in my power to forever avoid a certain high-profile, overly-botoxed NYC independent event planner.
Whatever. I figure it’s all fodder for the tell-all I’m going to pen later on in my life a la Devil Wears Prada. Ok. Yes.

If this year was a TV show, the season finale probably would have been about as heartwrenching and inconclusive as the last Greys Anatomy. It’s no secret that this semester kind of sucked for me, but near the end, a bunch of crappy stuff happened that left me in dire need of a break before even attempting the whole happily-ever-after thing. Like a formulaic ABC dramedy, my junior year ended with a million questions as well as a few triumphs, many failures and a love interest moving across the country (seriously, welcome to the joke that is my life). For now, I’m happy to be shelving all that and beginning my summer.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be working an internship for Great Performances, which I expect will bring me all kinds of valuable lessons in PR, sales, event production and catering. My job requires significant office time down in the funky SoHo loft-style headquarters and then some attendance at a few of the events (cue Fergie’s “Glamorous”… I know). If you recall, this is the company I visited during my Catering & Event Planning class field trip to NYC in September and fell in love with; I guess it was a mutual thing. In addition to being all-around fabulous, GP is really into sustainability and the company even has a FARM. A farm, people.

I have Fridays and weekends off from GP to do my other job, editorial work for HotelChatter.com. If you have a chance, go check out the site—it’s basically made for me. Pop culture and bitchy comments mixed with hotel industry news and reviews… hallelujah. They’re run by SFO*Media, a San Francisco based company that publishes HotelChatter, Jaunted, and TripHacker. Cool, cool.

I just want to give a few cheesy shoutouts before I sign off. First of all, thank you to Lisa Cameron-Norfleet for creating and overseeing the student blogging project and for giving me the opportunity to be a part of it. You’ve been nothing but supportive throughout this whole experience; I’m sure I speak for all six of us when I say that it’s been fabulous. Tommy Bruce, thanks for believing in us and for helping to convince the rest of the administration that we don’t suck. My readers, whoever you may be, you guys are awesome and if reading this blog helped you gain a teeny tiny twinkle of insight into the real Cornell experience, I feel validated. Danielle, Ash and Brett, I don’t know where I would be right now if I didn’t have you girls this year. Thank you so, so much for everything and for never letting me forget what’s important. Jordan, you’ve always been there through butterflies and hurricanes and I can’t even begin to tell you how proud of you I am. Anne, you kept me sane through the circus and so much more. You are the funniest, most loyal person I know and I totally forgive you for drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. I solemnly swear to show up at your wedding wearing bejeweled Crocs and acid-washed jean shorts and to share a bottle of Riesling whenever you need to obsess over anything. Erin, you are my best friend in the whole world and Texas is incredibly lucky to have you. I miss you every single day and I can’t wait until we’re so successful and fabulous that we can take spontaneous weekend trips to exotic places just to try the margaritas. Remember: dentist, too, shall pass. To my favorite hotelies in the back corner of the student lounge, your smiles and perpetually upbeat attitudes make the rough classes and long days seem like a constant party. Finally, and most importantly, thank you to my family. To my brother Michael, who calls me from Alaska to remind me that life is about more than boys, grades and clothes. Mom and Dad, you’ve been supportive of me every time I’ve changed my mind about what I was interested in and have read, commented on and saved every blog entry and newspaper column I’ve ever written. Thanks for supporting me no matter what and for being there for me whenever I need anything, especially these last few months.

I hope everyone has a great summer and please feel free to email me at jkb34@cornell.edu if you have questions or comments!

My palms were so sweaty that I had to wipe them on my dress every 20 seconds just to keep my fingers from slipping. I shot a desperate glance across the ensemble at my best friend Matt, hoping he’d toss me a martini or at the very least flash a reassuring smile. Unfortunately, despite his 7 years of experience with my pre-performance meltdowns, he was spaced out entirely. I tried looking into the stage lights and squinting my eyes, envisioning an empty auditorium in front of me. Nope, and now my mascara was smudged. Not even thoughts of my uniform, a floor-length polyester nightmare with an empire waist and shoulder pads, could silence the constant “oh my god”s in my head. Crap crap crap– I was in the midst of a freakout with absolutely no freakout alleviators in sight. As I toyed with the idea of holding my breath until I fainted and wondered if staging my own kidnapping was possible in under 10 seconds, the conductor stepped onto the podium. With a wink in my direction, he raised his baton and the entire Plano West Wind Ensemble took a breath behind me. It was in this moment that I was swallowed by the distinct, unforgettable feeling of wanting to be anywhere else in the world, anywhere but here on this stage getting ready to play the enormous clarinet solo in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Cappriccio Espagnol for our Pre-UIL concert.

And it was at precisely this moment that I knew it was time to let go of my childhood dream of becoming a professional musician.

I know. Cappriccio, Caprice. Ironic, right? The thing is, until that afternoon, I knew with absolute certainty that I was going to college to study music. In 8th grade, I used to tell people I wanted to be a professional clarinetist and play a solo in the Sydney Opera House. By 10th grade, I fantasized about being the first female director of the New York Philharmonic and (I’d never tell any of my high school friends this) could even see myself becoming a high school band or orchestra director. But after 7 years of serious clarinet study– the concerto competitions, the auditions, the bloody lips, the terrifyingly strict Korean private teachers, the impossible solos, and the devastation of missing my junior year all-state qualifier by only two spots– I realized it wasn’t ever going to be right for me. Most of all, performing is supposed to make a musician happy, isn’t it? Well, I enjoy being onstage playing a clarinet solo about as much as I enjoy a good pap smear.

Read the rest of this entry »

I got my summer internship… and oh my god, is it fabulous. While banking internship interviews are causing most of Cornell to pee their pants or wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats (ew and ew), I will be experiencing no such horrors. Great Performances, one of New York City’s most reputable and well-known catering and special events companies, extended me an offer last week. GP is the company that does Jazz at Lincoln Center and manages/caters a TON of high-profile social and corporate events, galas, weddings, movie premiers, and fine arts/entertainment events. My internship will be in different departments within the company and this, of course, includes attendance at many of the events.

Seriously, check out the website: www.greatperformances.com.

I know. The hotelie life is glamorous.

They’re everywhere.

Navy ones, black ones, charcoal ones. Some with fugly ties or with white socks. Some accompanied by shirts that seem to be brave choices, others with the classic light blue button downs marked by the sweetly obvious telltale “my mommy ironed this over winter break” creases in the sleeves.

The suits.

Half of the students in this school are sporting business suits right now because it’s the time of year when all the banks come to campus and recruit for summer interns. The whole process involves multiple rounds of interviews, fancy pre-interview receptions, and white-faced students stumbling out of frosted glass interview rooms after being blindsided with a question like, “what is the size of the market for disposable diapers in China?” Suit season here is so intense that Hickey Freeman (the custom suit company) has actually set up shop in the Hotel School atrium. I’m quite serious– they’ll be there until 5:00 tonight.

Most of you know that I have fought a highly publicized 2.5-year battle with finance. Lord knows how, but I have managed to just barely pass all 4 numbers-based classes that the Hotel School has forced me to take. I am currently struggling through round 5: Hospitality Financial Management (which I’m told is different than the other 4, but it seems to be ruining my life just the same). When it comes to Jenna Bromberg and finance, D stands for Done. And also Don’t ever do this to me ever again. I guess you could say that the whole subject and I are in one of those toxic on-and-off relationships where he (finance) wins every single argument and each time I break up with him, I am forced to take him back and as much as I swear that things will be different each time around, he just ends up hurting me again. Um, anyway.

Personally, I’m not quite sure why an aspiring investment banker chooses to come to the best hotel school in the world to put themselves through culinary classes, required shifts in the housekeeping department, and courses like HA 355 (affectionately dubbed ‘Flush and Gush’… aka “What happens when all the toilets in your hotel overflow?”). But then again, maybe they’re like me and came here with every intention to open up a restaurant and by junior year changed their mind completely. Eh, I suppose an aspiring investment banker belongs at the Hotel School just as much as the future food and travel writer who sits in Flush and Gush class writing a blog entry while half-listening to a lecture on solid waste disposal. So I guess The Suits and I have something in common after all….

Oops. Secret’s out. I figured out what I want to do with my life and I just told the world.

They’re everywhere.

Navy ones, black ones, charcoal ones. Some with fugly ties or with white socks. Some accompanied by shirts that seem to be brave choices, others with the classic light blue button downs marked by the sweetly obvious telltale “my mommy ironed this over winter break” creases in the sleeves.

The suits.

Half of the students in this school are sporting business suits right now because it’s the time of year when all the banks come to campus and recruit for summer interns. The whole process involves multiple rounds of interviews, fancy pre-interview receptions, and white-faced students stumbling out of frosted glass interview rooms after being blindsided with a question like, “what is the size of the market for disposable diapers in China?” Suit season here is so intense that Hickey Freeman (the custom suit company) has actually set up shop in the Hotel School atrium. I’m quite serious– they’ll be there until 5:00 tonight.

Most of you know that I have fought a highly publicized 2.5-year battle with finance. Lord knows how, but I have managed to just barely pass all 4 numbers-based classes that the Hotel School has forced me to take. I am currently struggling through round 5: Hospitality Financial Management (which I’m told is different than the other 4, but it seems to be ruining my life just the same). When it comes to Jenna Bromberg and finance, D stands for Done. And also Don’t ever do this to me ever again. I guess you could say that the whole subject and I are in one of those toxic on-and-off relationships where he (finance) wins every single argument and each time I break up with him, I am forced to take him back and as much as I swear that things will be different each time around, he just ends up hurting me again. Um, anyway.

Personally, I’m not quite sure why an aspiring investment banker chooses to come to the best hotel school in the world to put themselves through culinary classes, required shifts in the housekeeping department, and courses like HA 355 (affectionately dubbed ‘Flush and Gush’… aka “What happens when all the toilets in your hotel overflow?”). But then again, maybe they’re like me and came here with every intention to open up a restaurant and by junior year changed their mind completely. Eh, I suppose an aspiring investment banker belongs at the Hotel School just as much as the future food and travel writer who sits in Flush and Gush class writing a blog entry while half-listening to a lecture on solid waste disposal. So I guess The Suits and I have something in common after all….

Oops. Secret’s out. I figured out what I want to do with my life and I just told the world.