It's Not Too Late to Have a Meaningful Spring Break

Back in 2007, overachiever go-getter that I am, I decided to have a bit of a different spring break.

I was a junior in journalism school. Graduation was only a year away and I was terrified at the prospect of spending even a day unemployed. (Two words: student loans.) I was starting a career in a dying industry, I was a foreign student with an extremely restrictive visa, and I lived in Columbia, Missouri – stellar training ground for journalists but not exactly the heart of the media business. The deck was stacked and it was time to prepare.

What I had for me was a supportive group of peers and professors at the Missouri School of Journalism and through them access to the famed "Mizzou Mafia," an alumni network that hasn't left one newsroom untouched. If you're going to have a career in media, New York City is the place to start. So I booked a ticket and lined up meetings with anyone who would say yes.

This would be a perfect post if I said that's when I joined LinkedIn. Sadly, I checked and it was only a few months later that I first heard about and joined the site. I connected the old-fashioned way: I sent a blind plea through our alumni listserv and asked my professors to connect me to every journalist they knew in New York.

I stayed in New Jersey with my former English as Second Language teacher, not just a little proud that I was now making a career out of writing in English. (Kids, ignore the taunts: it pays later in life to be the nerd in the front row.) Every morning, like generations of young women with dreams before me, I took the bus into "the city" to meet the people I wanted to be. They gave me tours of their newsrooms, answered my na?ve questions and encouraged me to follow my passion. And they paid for lunch, bless them!

This is my time to thank them publicly.

• David Joachim and Jo Craven-McGinty at the New York Times
• Marco Mulcahy at the Associated Press
• Millie Munshi at Bloomberg
• Someone who will get their reward in heaven at Reuters, through the kind intercession of Greg McCune, Peter Bohan and Carey Gillam

If nothing else, the moment when I was ushered into a non-descript hallway in the back of the New York Times newsroom (the old one) only to look up and see 96 Pulitzer prizes on the walls, would have made the trip.

This would be a perfect post if I said I got a job or internship out of this trip. I didn't. I might have, had my visa not been so restrictive. I came close with Reuters, but darn if that other kid didn't speak Chinese! It doesn't matter though: I learned, I made connections and my passion was confirmed. You'll never catch the fish if you don't throw a lot of lines into the sea.

Eight years later, planning a trip like this has only got easier. No small change: you can look up your own school's LinkedIn page and find alumni in your city or another with a career you envy. You don't even need to be a teacher's pet. And I have yet to meet one professional worth their salt who would refuse to meet an eager student who's serious about their craft.

So no offense to Cancun or Punta Cana, but if you're looking to set yourself up for success, this is the spring break I recommend. And if it takes you to Sydney, send me a note: I'll buy you lunch.