From the 47th Floor

SOME months ago, as I began to gear up, emotionally and physically, for my summer as a magazine intern in New York, I found the June issue of a popular women's magazine propped open in my half-packed suitcase. The magazine was open to the "Readers Speak Out" page and to a column by a 25-year-old advertising copy-writer in San Francisco who lamented, "I wish somebody - anybody - had told me what it was like to begin a career."

It seems this young woman had, like me, won a magazine internship in New York the summer after her junior year in college. She painted the experience in the glowing colors in which she had lived it: "We were the darlings of the publishing world, taking two-hour lunches with a different big-shot every week and spending lazy afternoons around Gloria Steinem's desk at Ms. sharing rose and thoughts about the women's movement." It was almost too good to be true, she thought - if this is the cold, cruel world after graduation, lemme at it!

Of course, it was too good to be true, and nine months later the former darling, sheepskin in hand, was out pounding the pavement like her disadvantaged brethren. When she finally did land a job with some resemblance to what she had been trained for that summer in Gotham, she found the work repetitive and the absence of built-in deadlines and promotions to which she had become accustomed in school disorienting. Conclusion: A taste of the pie may whet your appetite, but don't expect to feel good after you've eaten the whole thing.

I laughed at the column then, thinking it was a not-too-subtle hint from my wellmeaning mother (who also made me a reservation at the Barbizon Hotel for Women immediately upon hearing of my summer plans). There was no way I was going to believe that the summer would be anything less than marvelously productive and totally representative of what I would be doing come graduation - and of where I would be doing it. New York! Glitter, glamor, the Promised Land.

Well, here I stand on the threshold of my senior year, the great and glorious New York internship behind me. And it was great and glorious; I say so without irony.

There were ten of us interns altogether at the same company (Time Inc.), and we joked the first day of our internships about seeing the executive dining suites only twice all summer: the first and last days of the duration. It was a goal, somehow, that last luncheon on the 47th floor, the perfect bookend finish to our summers - and by the time it rolled around, we were able to look at our prosciutto-and-melon appetizers without wondering what they were and order drinks from the bar-cart without worrying about seeming too "forward." The VIP treatment had sucked us in, spoiled us rotten. And I realize now the writer of the column was right.

Don't get me wrong. Far be it from me to bite the hand that fed me in such lavish style for nine weeks. It wasn't exactly a boat race we were running, either, to earn those two-hour lunches. All of us were treated like staff members at our respective publications: put up or get out. There were a few 7:30 mornings to make 9:00 a.m. copy-room deadlines, and more than a few late nights sustained only by the bad coffee from the building cafeteria. It was flattering, more than anything else, not to be treated like the boss's kids; and I'm sure we all learned enormous amounts. But it's a danger of all isolated moments of time that they will begin to simulate reality, at least in the minds of those who live them.

Everyone on campus during the Dartmouth Plan era must have had that same feeling at some time: the feeling that this nine- to ten-week nugget of time called a "term" is beautiful for its intensity of experience and its diversity from other terms. It offers neat deadlines called "exams" and automatic promotion for hard work called "the next term." The truth is that it's fun while it lasts, but it's really only fun because it doesn't last. After a couple of weeks' hiatus we can make a fresh start, even in another country if we please. The mistakes, low marks or enmities of the previous term are temporarily lost to time, disappearing and half-forgotten with the change in seasons.

All ten of us reacted to the end of our internships in different ways. One intern, a shyly pushy type with a less than magnetic personality, confided in me that, even after such a great summer, he'd never want to return to Time Inc. because "too many people know me - I couldn't make a good impression." My shy pushy friend - call him Hubert - never treated the experience as anything other than temporary. He never much cared about the

impression he made, and now he doesn't want to return to its haunt. Some felt the internship created a burden to bear: because of one glorious summer, they are now junior executives and will be expected to act the part. For some, New York cast a golden glow about them that will dazzle plebian classmates.

I don't know. I can't agree wholeheartedly with any of my fellow interns. I think we all took away a little New York gold dust (and it's difficult to believe that anything that weighs so little can be a burden). I do feel more than a little sorry for Hubert. He had the same golden chance we all did, and which at Dartmouth we have with every term: to make it not only special, but preservable in our memories as just that. Hubert blew it.

So now, back in the womb - gold dust notwithstanding - I still think the author of that column was right. The greatest mistake any of us can make is to let a moment frozen in amber calcify into one big, solid mass that is supposed to represent time and space unlimited. That's not fair to the moment or to time and space. It denies the richness of the latter and the rareness of the former.

When he describes his memory of prepschool days in A Separate Peace, novelist John Knowles hits the nail dead-center: "I somehow believed Devon School came into existence on the day I entered it, burned brightly while I was there, then flicked out like a snuffed candle when I left and has not been illuminated since." Instead of cursing at snuffed candles, we should be thankful that, at one time, they burned brightly just for us; and we should relax in the knowledge that someone will come along with a match and light some new ones at least a few more times.

Currently editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth, Anne Bagamery is majoring inRomance Languages and Literatures(French and Italian) with, she says,"strong interest in economics." She isfrom Birmingham, Michigan. The dutiesof Undergraduate Editor and WhitneyCampbell 1925 Intern will be shared by herand Mark Hansen '78.