I did not attend journalism school but during this time I was a student at University of Victoria in the writing department.
I have a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Writing from University of Victoria and I also have a Master’s of Arts in Communication and Culture from Ryerson University.
I originally started my career at an internship, at a trade magazine called West Coast Aviator Magazine which was in Victoria, British Columbia.
I never anticipated on working in the journalism field it wasn’t really on my radar. I went to school for writing but I didn’t really think specifically of journalism when I first went into school.
I recall that I just kind of happened to land in an internship position. However, in my free time, I really enjoyed reading a lot of magazines.
I did continue getting different job positions, mainly in-house, so I was always working. And when I was a student, I always thought I would be more freelance and travel the world.
However, right now I admit that I really enjoy working in-house at magazines.
We get a lot of applicants for any given position (at Avenue) and what we really are looking for is students who we believe are going to go on in the field.
We tend to look for students who have an interest in working in magazines, potentially as writers and editors, and we look for students who have previous writing experience.
The best advice I can give to students who are looking for internships is to write for their school papers and write for their community papers and write for blogs and whatever they can do to get some experience. Preferably experience where they are going to be edited by another person rather than just blogging.
As told to Aamara Khan. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Editor: Mason Benning | mbenning@cjournal.ca