Opportunity of a Lifetime
By: Lauren Halperin

Kristen Huffines was a freshman at Emerson College dreaming of doing public relations for the fashion world. At eighteen, she thought she’d have to wait a few more years before major companies would even consider hiring her for even an internship. But with a little help from the Career Services department at her school, she landed the opportunity of a lifetime. During the early weeks of March, Huffines received an information packet in her mail from alumni services about the school’s annual New York Connection trip. The trip consisted of two days and one night in New York City, sitting in on panelists of alumni in varying professions and learning the value of connections. “I was immediately interested in doing it,” Huffines said. “The idea of networking and being at seminars in the city with the names they were listing was really intriguing.

The packet also gave information on how to move to the city and that was something that always interested me.” In New York City, Huffines met Jude Perez, the Fashion Director of W Magazine. The first time they spoke, Huffines didn’t even have a resume. “I was just a freshman,” Huffines said nonchalantly. I had no prior work experience that would warrant having a resume to give to a professional company like that other than president of career development Public Relations Student Society of America at school.” When she came back to Boston, Huffines took a trip to Career Services at her school. There, they gave her sample layouts of resumes for her to put together. Once she was armed with the proper information, she called W. “When I called I spoke to Sarah Greenberg,” Huffines remembered. “She was the publicist for Fairchild Publications as a whole, representing W, Jane, and several other national publications. By the time I had called, Jude Perez had already put in a good word for me.” A good word indeed. Perez had immediately gone to Greenberg and spoke of Huffines’ likeability and ‘zest for fashion.’ The interview for the job was conducted over the phone and after only a few minutes, Huffines faxed her resume over to the New York offices. “I really felt like I had the job after the phone interview,” Huffines stated proudly. “When I got notification that I had the internship, I was really relieved. They told me that they had over thirty resumes ahead of me for people who wanted the job, but they chose me over all of them.”

After the good news was told, Huffines and Greenberg discussed hours and dates that she would be on the job. Although Emerson College wouldn’t give her college credit, Huffines was eager to start working. From day one, Huffines was doing more than faxing and filing. During her duration as a W intern, her responsibilities included: working side by side with Joanne Halev, the Associate Publisher of Corporate Beauty at W, and Evyn Block, the Beauty Manager at W. More mundane duties included: organizing the ABC Celebrity Time capsule information and typing the proposal to go out to all the CEO’s and publishers of Jane Magazine for Editor-In-Chief, Jane Pratt’s celebrity party invitations. “My favorite thing I did while working was sitting in on the entertainment television (E!) interview that Jane Editor-In-Chief, Jane Pratt did about the controversial article cover on Courtney Love. It was really cool to see what happens in the backgrounds of broadcasted interviews like that.” But her job wasn’t all fun and games. Huffines had a taste of what the professional life had to offer when she had her first real run in with public relations press releases. “Having the opportunity to edit them,” Huffines said, “really made me feel like I was a professional doing my job. It increased my self-esteem greatly about being in a high-pressure job environment because I was dealing with corporate clients, and calling radio and television stations in the same day.” Now that Huffines is a senior, she’s taking the wisdom she learned during her internship to the west coast, where she is being considered for internships at high-profile companies, like DreamWorks owned by director-guru, Stephen Spielberg.