A summer at The Huffington Post

Sahaj Kohli was born and raised outside of Richmond, VA where she is currently finishing a degree in Psychology.

I can’t believe that I’m already more than half way done with my internship at The Huffington Post in New York City. It’s been an amazing experience ever since I got the great news that I won the about.me contest. I was born and raised in the safety net of the suburbs in Virginia but am definitely a city girl at heart. As soon as I stepped foot in the city, the journey began.

It’s quite an understatement to say that I was intimidated and overwhelmed when I started about five weeks ago. Unlike everyone I work with (or at least know at HuffPost), I had absolutely no journalism experience. I’ve had to ask more than a few questions and often spent extra time at my desk, but it’s beyond amazing how friendly and willing to help my editors and coworkers have been. Although I’m still acquiring the skills needed to write strictly news stories and find myself frantically looking up lingo (why would you call anything a nut graf?), I am finding that I have a place and a perspective to offer to the heart of my verticals, HuffPost College and HuffPost Women.

I am a passionate blogger on love and relationships as well as the phenomenon known as the quarter life crisis. I quickly found that having no journalism experience allowed me to share and inspire my editors with ideas that could be labeled as too “creative” for the news industry. After three weeks, I helped launch the Quarter Life Crisis project on the HuffPost College page – a page where readers can submit their personal stories on crises or struggles. My blog is also cross-published on it weekly. For HuffPost College, I have also taken my social media skills (which actually landed me this internship through the about.me contest) and helped substantially increase social referrals for the vertical. For Women, I have been given the opportunity to take what I would usually write for my Love Blog and write posts to be published on its page.

A year ago, I never would have imagined myself in this internship. I have only been blogging for 10 months but have found that if you do what you love and follow what you want with all of your heart, there will always be a place for you. Working at HuffPost has solidified my belief in myself, in spite of my lack of certain qualifications. It has also taught me to speak up, nurture and protect my personal voice and shape up my adaptation skills.

This internship has been a valuable and positive experience. I’m very happy that I’ve been given the opportunity to learn and actively practice another style of writing than what I’m naturally used to. I’m not your average journalist but by pursuing my passion for writing, I broke into a new field and am excited to still have a month left here (maybe a little bit because of the ping-pong and foosball tables).