By: Omar K. Elmore, Staff writer
Virginia McCully, Wofford Class of 2017, has always wanted her work published in a well-known magazine. She crossed that off her bucket list this summer, and hopes the experience will be her big break into the field.
McCully interned for Modern Luxury in Atlanta, Ga., during the summers. She learned the copyediting process and the hard work that goes into the production of a magazine.
“In the internship I learned different skills I had not encountered before like fact-checking, copy editing, and how to research different topics. Then I learned different styles of the magazine; magazines use AP style which is different than the MLA style that I am taught as an English major,” McCully said. “There’s a lot more to the editorial process of the magazine than anyone knows. The writing is intensive but so is the research and the fact-checking.”
While with Modern Luxury, McCully wrote several pieces that made their way into four different issues of “Jezebel” and “The Atlantan.”
In addition to learning the ins and outs of the industry, McCully also helped organize corporate events.
“I learned to copy edit, learned to do research quickly, helped plan extravagant events and watched my boss interact with the public,” says McCully. “People say the magazine industry is dying, the magazine industry isn’t going to make it. But one of the things they are working hard to do is to rebrand it, so it’s not just print … They are making themselves an overall brand.”
McCully credits her experience with The Space, Wofford’s professional development center, with helping her shape her future.
Last summer, McCully worked WritefullyHis Foundation, a social stationery, greeting card and wedding invitation company that gives 20 percent of their proceeds back to purchasing paper and pencil for school children in East Africa. The stipend McCully wrote a blog for the WritefullyHis & Wedding website, on which she was given freedom to create her own topics and design. That work sparked Virginia’s passion for lifestyle journalism.
Once she decided on a career path, McCully attended the Institute at the Space to gain the professional skills she needed to be effective in her internship.
“All of my goals that I have had going to college have somehow been tied The Space,” says McCully. “I had the Mike Brown Stipend last year to help me with WritefullyHis which gave me spark of lifestyle industry. Then I did The Institute at The Space which helped me really refine my ideas and learn exactly what I needed to do to make myself more marketable to the companies I wanted to apply to.”
She was awarded the Extraordinary Internship Stipend, a $1000 scholarship for those that spend the summers doing something amazing. The internship was unpaid, so the stipend helped her to be able to afford a summer in Atlanta.
“Receiving money from this stipend helped lighten the financial weight of my summer plans and made this internship very manageable for my family and me.”
It all culminated in McCully having her work published.
“This was my big break, I guess,” she said. Though she worked with five others who all were majoring in Journalism, she never felt she was at a disadvantage.
“We don’t have journalism here at Wofford, but Wofford gives us all the tools that we need to get into any industry we want.”