Yes, I’m taking the LSAT. Just like I took the GRE last month, and I’ll probably take the GMAT a couple months from now. I’m doing it for pretty much the same reason I do most things like this: why not?

I have no idea what my future holds. Obviously, things are good right now, but grad school is—at some point—certainly on the horizon. With a degree in marketing, a degree in communications, and a minor in statistics, I’m lucky to be in a position where I have a great degree of flexibility over which graduate program I might pursue.

Given my passion for politics, government, and all the ins and outs of how our country works, law school does, perhaps someday, make sense for me. Obviously the LSAT is the first step. Wish me luck!

nevver: Dress for Success

For the past 22 years—or well, as long as I can remember—my entire life has really had one constant theme: school. It’s been all about doing better in class, getting the grade, moving on to the next year and working my way, one step at a time, toward the BIG one, graduating from college. And it’s finally here.

It’s an incredible feeling. An insane feeling, really. And I couldn’t be more excited about the incredible things happening in my life right now. I am so incredibly fortunate to be where I am today, and to have the family, friends, and colleagues who support me, encourage me, challenge me, and push me to achieve more each and every day.

This is a big moment.

Just today it was announced that I have won the President’s Award at American University. And equally as exciting, I’m starting my career (!) on May 16th as Director of Marketing for GeniusRocket. Finally, this weekend I’ll be graduating with my B.S.B.A. in Marketing and B.A. in Public Communications from AU (and you’re invited!). I’ll be honest, I’m practically falling out of my chair I’m so excited about all of this.

I look back on the past 22 years and it’s flown by. And I’m realizing now that this was all just Chapter 1. A long chapter, maybe, with lots of twists and turns, but this… now this is moving on to Chapter 2. The next big step in my life.

No longer is it about how many hours I’m sitting in the classroom. Now it’s about how many awesome things I can fit into 24 hours of life every single day.

There’s no more tests or papers to worry about, and no more grades. Just fun work and honest, critical feedback from my colleagues, the people I respect and trust the most.

Finally, from now on, my accomplishments are going to be judged by more than just a standardized number at the end. I’m done thinking on a 4.0 scale—I’m ready to start thinking in terms of how big an impact I can make, how many lives I can touch, and how much value I can pack into a lifetime of work, adventure, and just living.

Life is good. Let’s go.

I’ve been busy the past few months, though. Honest. I haven’t just been sitting around writing blog entries in a notebook instead of sharing them with you here online. Here’s a little of what I’ve managed to get done:

• Developed, designed, and launched the the new AU Social Media Club website —twice, actually, after our original host had a server crash the day after I finished it the first time, losing almost everything. v2.0 is definitely a little more awesome than v1.0 though, so I suppose at least some good came of that.
• Survived two more months of classes to get me to this point, now only a little over three weeks from graduation (say what?!).
• Coordinated and pulled off probably the coolest event I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on, the 2011 Social Learning Summit, a conference aimed at bringing together students, educators, and professionals to learn from each other and with each other about the latest in social media, technology, innovation and education. It was a tremendous success, with more than 300 attendees, almost 10,000 tweets for the weekend, 80+ speakers across 21 panels, and overwhelmingly positive reviews by all in attendance. I’m still a little giddy about it.
• Dove headfirst into the job search, seeking out any and all cool opportunities, mostly here in DC. Haven’t made a decision yet, but I’m real excited about whatever might be in store for me next.

So there’s your obligatory update on my life. Alas, don’t expect to hear a lot from me over the next couple weeks as I work to get through finals and graduation, but I’ll do my best!

Today I will reach my 30,000th tweet.

Or I might have already, depending on when this is published. It's been a long and winding journey and my 30,000 some tweets so far tell a number of stories, but primarily that of myself, a young professional making my way through college, traveling the world, and working towards career success (with a little luck).

I started it all on July 20, 2007, sitting in a cramped little apartment outside of Tokyo, Japan, where I was staying for six weeks as part of a cultural exchange scholarship program. I signed up not knowing what this little micro-blogging service called Twitter was, and with no possible idea where it would take me over the course of the past three or so years.

As I tweeted out my excitement about hitting 30,000 tweets this morning, a follower asked me, "How many were of value?" That got me thinking. How many of these little 140 character messages really provided value to anyone? What have I accomplished in my 30,000 tweets, my approximate 4,200,000 characters, those 50,000-some-odd words?

To me, all of them provided value, and I've accomplished more than I ever dreamed I would with a social network.

With social media there's a constant struggle between quantity and quality. Do you want to be the one who's always present, always first on the news, and with the highest stats and metrics? Or do you want to be the one with the highest quality, who provides intense value in a small number of tweets, updates, or blog posts?

I think that depends on your goals, and I don't think there's any rule saying you can't have both, as long as you balance it right and engage with those around you–it is a social network, after all, not a wire service.

For me, my 30,000 tweets have taken me around the world, transformed my relationships, integrated me into the city I live in, and propelled me on a career path I never would have expected even two years ago.

With those 30,000 tweets I've made thousands of friends and I've shared countless lessons. I've shared my joy during the 2008 presidential election, participated from afar in the attempted Iranian revolution, shared my experiences protesting for action to solve climate change in Copenhagen, and enjoyed the calmer moments in life with thousands upon thousands of both digital and real-life friends.

After those 30,000 tweets I can now look at how I've evolved on social media. I can look at my activity from a personal and a professional perspective–as a student, marketer, communicator, citizen journalist, activist and more. And taking a step back and looking at those 30,000 tweets, I see that I've created incredible value for myself, and I hope I've created value for those that follow me and those I've gotten to know through this remarkable social network. Here's to 30,000 more.

I agree, for the most part, but it got me wondering… is “student” a dirty word in today’s world of professionalism and networking?

I think that it kind of is, but I don’t think it necessarily should be.

I’ve been lucky. Despite my labels–”student,” “intern,” “young”–I’ve still been, for the most part, treating with the same respect and courtesy as my colleagues and fellow professionals. This could be partly because of the crowd I hang out with, who are generally fairly young (although not always) and very progressive (but again, not always). It could also be because of the field I’m in, marketing and communications, which is a field in which young people are pioneering in ways the veterans have simply not.

That said, I do wonder–do the people who follow me on Twitter interpret my tweets differently because I am still a student? Do the people who read this blog take my advice and my thoughts with a grain of salt, because I lack the experience many other professionals have? To what extent should “experience” determine an audience’s expectation of quality?

Now I realize I’m throwing out more questions than answers here, but I sincerely hope this isn’t the case, especially in the fields of social media and marketing. I would hope that, given the nature of the industry, someone would see the label “student” and expect to learn more. I would hope they would jump at the opportunity to learn from someone with such a different and new perspective than the vast majority of their colleagues. And I would hope that my own, youthful and new experiences could be just as much a learning opportunity for those in my network as they are for me.

As I move into the “real world” it will be an interesting shift away from this. I wonder how people will view me differently, or how the opportunities offered to me will change. Will people reach out to me more because they know I have a title with two degrees? Or will they reach out to me less because they think opportunities are already there, and they’d have to pay me more to do work for them?

“Student” is a unique label. It’s one that defines experience, age, maturity, location, and professionalism. But I’ve never been a fan of labels. So what if we started considering “student” a title instead of a label? What if we started looking at the word “student” like we do “communicator” or “marketer”? What if we began to look at the unique benefits that title implies, instead of the often incorrect assumptions associated with it?

What if we made sure “student” was never mistaken for a dirty word again?

Today @ptklein, @laurenkrizel and I wandered over to the National Zoo for a while to enjoy the weather (it’s free, and you can literally just walk in–one of the best things to do on a pretty day in DC, if you ask me). Being in the zoo sparked all of our more adventurous sides, and naturally we got to talking about safaris, traveling the world, and long-shot career options like nature photography, etc.

But Paul brought up a great point, and it made me start to think. We’re the first generation who isn’t brought up to be just one thing in life. Very few of us anymore set out to be only doctors, or only businessmen. I’d even be willing to bet that if I surveyed 500 of my closest college-age friends, very few of them would be able to pinpoint one answer to the age-old question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

I’m far from being able to answer that question, too. My degrees are in marketing and communications, with some study in statistics. So where will that leave me? In a PR firm? Doing marketing for some big company? I’m not sure that’s where I want to be.

Instead, what if I put my marketing and social media skills to use in a high-profile political campaign? Or took them into humanitarian work abroad? Or used them to document the natural world on wild African adventures? Or maybe I could take them into the government, working in the White House; as an elected official connecting with my constituents; or maybe even in the State or Defense Departments, working to keep our country safe and secure?

See what I mean? I can envision thousands of possibilities for my skills, and who knows, my degrees might not even be relevant five years from now. For all I know Twitter and Facebook will be a thing of the past, this blog will be a relic, and I’ll be on to bigger and better things.

As long as it’s exciting, I’m ok with that. If there’s one thing I fear, it’s living a boring life. I’m pretty confident I’ve avoided that so far, and with a little luck I’ve got nothing to worry about in the future. My life-long goal is simple: to have good stories to tell when I’m old. I want to be a 21st-century Indiana Jones (perhaps minus the Nazis), one adventure after the next, living, learning, and, well, living.

What do you want to do? What adventures can you imagine in your future? Sound off in the comments, or chat with me on Facebook or Twitter.

A few key quotes (links are mine):

Finding and landing an internship is a lot like finding a job; it requires a lot of research, persistence and networking. “The earlier you start, the better — the more choices you have,” said Mary Ryan, president of the Washington Internship Institute, which runs area internship programs for smaller universities.

Students, start at your college or university career center to identify resources and key dates. “If you’re on the career services director’s radar,” you’re at the forefront when opportunities open up, said Yazad Dalal…

Looking for internships in DC creates sort of a love/hate relationship between the student and the process. One one hand, there are a lot of internships to be found here in the District. Every single department of the government has them, along with every nonprofit, lawyer, lobbyist, public relations agency and financial firm in town. But it is competitive, make no mistake.

Last Spring I applied for over 40 internships. I heard back from three of them. That’s about the kind of response rate you can expect, generally (unless you’re just really lucky). Thankfully, all the internships I have landed have been absolutely amazing, but I’m probably considered one of the lucky ones.

But the article is right, too–just keep working hard and hunting them down, and you’ll get it. It’s really more a matter of effort than luck. For what it’s worth, I’ve posted the resources The Washington Post referenced in their article below (since they didn’t bother linking to them on their online version of the article), as well as a few resources I personally recommend (which I think are better, too). Good luck internship-hunting!