Graduation

I know it's still 7 months away, but graduation has been on my mind a lot lately. The fact that I am now counting down in months instead of years is scary as it is. A lot of my classes this semester are senior level classes and I think most of us don't know where we'll be a year from now. One of my recent homework assignments was to find a PR job or internship in the city where you'll be living in next summer. Uh...I have no idea. My plan was to stay at OC and do my master's program, but I'm thinking I may need to wait until I pay off the school debt that is on my shoulders now instead of just building it up. I would still like to stay in the Edmond/OKC area, but what a job offer comes my way and it is 500 miles away? I don't want to leave my friends who will not graduate with me or are getting jobs here, but I also don't want to pass up a 1 in a million job. It wouldn't be ideal either if I have to move to an area where I don't know a single soul. Where am I supposed to go?

There has also been a lot of talk about internships in my classes lately. I technically have one this semester with TOMS Shoes, but they haven't been very helpful at all in telling me what I need to do. We had a couple of guest speakers (who were classmates of mine last semester) come into our PR Principles class to talk to us about their jobs with a local PR Agency. Their biggest tip was to get an internship and get your foot in the door before graduation. I think I applied for 15-20 internships last spring and most of them wouldn't call back or they didn't want to receive phone calls regarding the job. It was a lot more frustrating, stressful, and time consuming than I thought it was going to be. One thing I don't like about being a PR major is that the field is so competitive. If you're wanting to intern for a non-profit, they'll hire you in a second because most non-profits don't pay their interns. But if you want to be able to actually pay your bills and only work 1 job, you are less likely to get the position because everybody else wants the exact same one! Why can't they just tell me they like my personality and give me the job??? I know it doesn't work that way, but it would be convenient!

Sometimes while sitting in class, I wonder what kind of field I've gotten myself into. Even after taking 2 full years of PR and advertising classes, I still don't know what some things mean. What gets me is, it seems like the freshmen and sophomores in my classes know more about my major than I do! Needless to say, I feel like the class dummie a lot of the time! It seemed like last year I understood a lot more, but I think it all washed away during the summer :( So, what do I need to do to not feel stupid in my classes and to be prepared for post graduation come early May?