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One writer shares her summer reflection during the Entity Mentorship.

In three days, I’m walking out the door – of the corner downtown office I’ve come to call home for three months. These past 13 weeks working at the San Diego Entity headquarters have sent waves of excitement, disappointment and pride through my eager wordsmith veins.

Now, looking back, I stop. I stop to smell our grey bundles of pens mixed with the hops from the brewery next door. I stop to listen to the clatter of manicured hands composing beautiful syntax and poetic reporting. I stop to recall the passionate lunch break conversations that usually concluded with an enthusiastic, “You should write an article about that!”

Aside from these three months of memories, I’ll also be walking away with a lot of lessons under my aspiring writer wings. I expected to learn a lot entering the internship – that’s what an internship is, after all – but my experience during the Entity Mentorship extended beyond the written world.

From 9 to 5, I was a writer. But I was also an adult. I woke up at the crack of dawn to make my bed, scour online news headlines and grab that steaming cup of coffee on my way out the door. I fought through rush-hour traffic and learned to cook meals without a microwave. I slowly adjusted my poor sleeping patterns developed from typical college habits. I sat attentive through work seminars, dissolved my shy demeanor for networking mixers and tackled phone interviews as a gen-texter.

Entity gave me the opportunity to be a part-time adult. Three days a week I entered an office – home to the magazine and my career’s potential. The program allowed me to gain experience in the field I love without committing to a full-time contract.

Entity wasn’t just a resume booster or a portfolio grower. Entity was a chance to dip my digital pen into the Internet world to see if I have what it takes to make it in the age of half-alive journalism. After this internship, I feel ready to make my dent.

When I walk out that door this week, I’m leaving behind 40 lovely women and 100 original articles. But I’m also bringing a lot with me. I’m packing away my polished writing skills and grammar execution – not to mention my adulting skills of parallel parking and ironing.

But perhaps most importantly, I’m taking away strength that I never realized I had. Strength to tackle difficult subjects; strength to work the 9 to 5 grind; strength to handle unexpected deadlines or halted launch dates.

As I transition into the real world, I feel that strength underneath my fingertips as I type job resumes, cover letters and sample submissions. I feel that strength spill itself out on blank paper – or word documents – to materialize into something magical. I may be leaving Entity but I’m taking this strength wherever I go. Because in or out of this magazine’s office space, I will always be one of the #WomenThatDo.

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