You mentioned a couple of internships being really rewarding for you. Do you have a stance on unpaid internships?

If you can get a paid internship, do a paid internship. In the world that we live in, that's pretty hard to find. Internships help on your resume, as in people respond to you when they see a name. It also helps you understand the industry better when you see the inside of so many different offices because they vary so much. It helps you figure out what you want. If you can do them, do them. If you can't do them, there's still a way to make your mark- – you just have to know what people want. If doing an unpaid internship is going to break your back, put you in debt or something crazy like that, I wouldn't do it; there's got to be a better way. But if you can do it, do it.

Let’s start off with your experiences that lead you to become an editor at Into The Gloss. Internships? Northwestern? How was it?

I wasn't paid for the longest time. And I have opposing views in my own mind about whether that’s a good thing. Sometimes it's okay to do work for free, if you know what value you're getting out it—maybe there’s no money, but the byline is worth something. That said, not everyone can intern for free, and not everyone should intern for free. When I did I lived very frugally, I didn't pay rent, I lived with family. You make it work.

I think meeting a lot of people is really important and Northwestern allowed me to do that. Any time I came to New York, I looked up alumni, I set up coffee meetings with people who had experiences I wanted to replicate. And internships, to an extent, did too. Face time is so important—probably equally as important or more so than pure training and skill. Studying and writing and practicing were things I was obviously conscious of, but I don’t think I’d have my job had I not met a lot of people for coffee.