Story by Cat Cardenas // @c.aaattt // she/her

Graphic by Caroline Blanton // @caroline_blanton // she/her

I would like a refund on my college experience.

Inspired by the likes of Kate Hudson and Jennifer Garner, I decided to major in Journalism, in hopes that one day I would be writing for a fashion magazine in New York. However, I am not sitting in a glamorous high-rise trying to come up with a list of how to lose a guy in 10 days. Instead, I am sitting in my less-than-glamorous West Campus apartment as a broke college student who knows nothing about fashion.

I treasure the reality of my life as a college student with the resources and community I have, but if I could skip to the part where I magically turn 30 and fall in love with my best friend while working for a prestigious fashion magazine, 13 Going on 30 style, I would. 

I was raised on the plethora of 90s and early 2000s movies with this same plot element. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 13 Going on 30, The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses, Sex and the City, Confessions of a Shopaholic, just to name a few. I would be lying if I said it didn’t have a huge effect on who I molded my personality to be. 

Sometimes I think about what those characters were like in college. Did Carrie Bradshaw slave over learning the ever-changing rules of AP Style? Did Andrea Sachs cry over failing her math test because her math skills were sub-par? Welcome to my list of “things I didn’t think about before signing up for this.”

I can’t help but wonder what my life might be like if I put myself in a rom-com. Maybe I would work at Cosmopolitan or Vogue (although I’m terrified of Anna Wintour) or something more like The New Yorker. I would travel by subway every day with my best friend or roommate who also happens to work at the same company. Maybe I’d pick up my coffee from the same café every day, flirting with the cute, broody barista who knows my order by heart. 

I’d get cozy in my prime location apartment and wait for my pink Nokia flip phone to ring with plans for the night. Inevitably, we’d be going out to the hottest club, where I’d meet a man who I’d eventually engage in an enemies-to-lovers relationship with. Maybe we’d get married, or maybe I’d realize I was better off on my own.  

I get that I probably sound crazy, but a girl can dream. I’ll never get tired of these movies, and I hope that one day they’ll make a comeback, being the same, but better. Because in reality, the world of journalism is not as easy as the movies make it out to be, in any capacity. It’s hard and time-consuming, and nine times out of ten, you’ll be broke. The industry, although not as diverse as it should be, is also not just full of white people. I’m grateful for the movies for inspiring me to take this career path, but they are incredibly unrealistic. 

I also understand that it takes hard work to end up where the movie characters are. I have to put in the effort to end up at the fashion magazine of my dreams. So maybe one day, I’ll see y’all on the subway.