Being here in Georgia, I am constantly astounded by how many opportunities I have, job-wise and for fun. The only problem is I am extremely poor. Working at The Red & Black, the campus newspaper, I barely make $70 every two weeks. That has proved to be a problem. I’ve been trying to live on a budget of $40 for two weeks and that’s not going very well. But hey, I’d rather be poor now and have a good job in the future.

On Friday, I spent the evening with a lot of old men in suits, all in the name of getting the coveted big-time internship between my junior and senior year. At the local Holiday Inn, many of my co-workers and I gathered together for the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Media Management dinner.

At the dinner publishers, editors and reporters of The Associated Press, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Athens Banner-Herald and others were looking for recruits. Some of us were ready to schmooze until there was no tomorrow. Others were just wallflowers, sipping away at the bar and conversing with people we actually knew.

Everything had been organized by my journalism ethics professor, Conrad Fink. At first glance, the only thing you notice about him are his eyebrows. They’re long, white, gray and black all mixed together and they stick out from his head about an inch or so. Once you get through that distraction, it’s hard to get past his hardened journalist personality to get a compliment.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Fink was a foreign correspondent for the AP in Southeast Asia, covering stories in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries I wouldn’t dare set foot in now. Then in the ’70s, he was eventually promoted to a vice-president position. This is a man so hell-bent into journalism, that he once said that there is nothing more exciting than running through rice paddies with a notebook and pen in hand, darting from the bullets flying in the air.

While I was getting ready to come to Georgia, my journalism professors made no other request than to get into Fink’s ethics class. We go through area newspapers every day to examine any ethical issues or examples. When I have a story in the paper that day, I pray that I don’t have anything wrong, just so I can avoid the embarrassment of him barking. Every once in awhile though, I get an approving comment.

So to return to the scene on Friday, there I was hanging out with a few of my co-workers. We all looked like we were in pain just because we really did not want to be there.

Networking is not my forte; I feel much more comfortable in interviews.

When we were finally allowed to take our seats, Jon and I sat down in the back table and happened to sit down with an AP guy, who also happened to be a reporter for Fink. He was able to identify with us on how Fink pushed all of us to be the best reporters we possibly could be.

We found out that Mr. Clark (I can’t remember his first name) happened to report for the AP in the Dakotas and Minnesota in the late ’70s and ’80s so I thought this could be my chance to start up a conversation and impress him with my Midwest charm. Guess again; some girl who was also sitting at the table barely let anyone else do the talking. My opinion is that she was just desperate.

Anyway, so the networking opportunity didn’t really work out in the long run but I guess that’s all right.

The whole networking event made me realize that not everyone is good at schmoozing, and at least I got the chance to meet Mr. Clark, even though I didn’t really talk with him. I’ll just have to prepare myself for the big one-on-one interviews in a month or so, so I can get a decent internship this coming summer.

Amber Billings is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Sioux City. She is in Athens, Ga. for a semester as part of the National Exchange Program.