Last week, my one-time co-editor at the Tribune, and now full-time friend in real life, wrote about his post-McGill life and argued that McGill really is an amazing place. Something he mentioned, and I’ve been thinking about for the past five months, is that you don’t realize how great it is until it’s too late and you’re walking off the stage on the Lower Field with a diploma that may or may not help you get a job in the real world.

Besides the fact that graduation signals the end of the best four years of your life, the main problem with a McGill diploma is that it’s written in Latin. So, unless you’re like me and took seven years of Latin in middle and high school, it’s going to be difficult to know what to do with it. But, I do know some Latin, which is why I was able to use my degree to get a real job.

After I left McGill, I worked at two unpaid internships in New York City, where I now live. I was an editorial intern at MarcusSamuelsson.com—a celebrity chef’s food blog-type website—and DOWNTOWN Magazine—a Lower Manhattan lifestyle/fashion magazine. These were my fourth and fifth unpaid summer internships in New York City—the first three were at a comedy website, an investment bank, and an investigative television magazine, in that order. After enough unpaid labour, I eventually did get a job out of one of them.

I am now an editor at DOWNTOWN Magazine. I officially started in September and have been with the company, in one capacity or another, for about five months now. My main day-to-day job entails running the publication’s website. Because the magazine is currently a quarterly, everything that happens the rest of the year goes online. So, while we’re not technically a news organization, I spend a fair amount of my time reliving my glory year as a news editor at the Trib, reporting on things that are really, really important.

Also, as part of my editorial duties, I (yes me, Matt Essert) have my own interns. Just a few months ago, I was an intern, and now I have three interns who report to me and rely on me for college credit and general approval. And yes, it’s just as awesome as you’d imagine.

Besides the website, I also do a lot of work on the magazine. We have a very small staff of about 15 people and produce a book of roughly 120 pages every three months. I write when needed, and I edit most of the articles that go into the magazine. For the upcoming winter issue, I interviewed NHL bad-boy Sean Avery about his interest in fashion. It was pretty ace.

I never really put much weight into the idea that I’d be using my editing and writing skills for a real world job, but so far, so good. Part of this stemmed from that fact that I didn’t really start writing or editing until about two years ago, when I started doing it competitively, professionally, and publically.

I’ve learned two things since leaving McGill. First, you have to get kind of lucky, no matter what you’re doing. In some economic climates, there might be more or less luck to go around, but no matter what, you have to get lucky.

Second and perhaps more usefully, you’re going to need experience to get a job. It’s pretty ridiculously unfair that almost every job you apply for asks for “2-5 years experience”—how am I supposed to get any experience if I can’t get that first job? But while you’re still in college and still have time to enjoy yourself, get involved in extra curricular activities that might apply to what you want to do after you graduate. During my fourth year at McGill, I was, in one way or another, involved in five campus media outlets. The more actual, out-of-classroom experience you have, the more attractive your resume will appear. Also, try to get summer internships in a field that interests you. Sure, making money during the summer is great, but in the long term, it might be better to sacrifice some money now for a real job later.

But don’t worry; it’s not all bad. Living in an awesome city like New York, having a dope job as an editor at a magazine and trying to make it in this crazy economy is working out pretty well so far.