Hello Morgantown/Pittsburgh! Yesterday evening I made my grand (through a megabus) return from the Big Apple! The past two days have been full of running around the city and meeting all the big names from the journalism industry, and now I'm finally getting to tell yinz about it!

As a member, the social media director, and the vice president of student organization Ed2010/Ed on Campus at WVU, I was given the opportunity to travel with seven other students to New York City and meet these professionals. It's an amazing way to network with those in my field and, if it weren't for this trip last year, given me an outlook on my dream.

Thursday was our first full day in the city, and we began our day at around 9:30. We left our AirBnB in the Bronx, passed the Yankee Stadium, and caught the subway to the Oculus next to One World Trade Center. We shopped all morning in stores like Sephora, Kate Spade, H&M, and a ton of others! It was rainy, so I paired a few things together and managed to look business casual and fun!

For those of you who aren't familiar, the Oculus is a giant mall, most of which is underground. The outside itself is like a giant art installation, and it's super cool! The underground portion stretches out for blocks in each direction, and you can even catch a subway or enter One World Trade Center through it.

Our meeting for the day was in One World Trade Center, so we checked in through security and made our way into the elevator to meet Jacqueline Andriakos, the deputy editor of health features at Self Magazine. She brought in a few of her coworkers, whose jobs varied (like social media or product managers!), and we talked about what they did to get to where they were today. I personally asked them what I could do as an incoming intern to a magazine (if you didn't know, I recently accepted an internship with Pittsburgh Magazine!). Their biggest advice: Say yes to EVERYTHING. Know your limits for sure, but show how willing and committed you are to doing a good job! They said I would be greatly rewarded if I did.

After a quick little tour of their office, and getting followed back by one of their verified twitter accounts, we thanked them and left to get dinner.

Right down the street was a little restaurant called El Vez, which offered Mexican cuisine in a dimly-lit atmosphere. I had the best shrimp tacos!

We ended up spending almost two hours there, just talking about the journalism industry, the Oxford comma, and debriefing what we had just learned. We paid the check, and went to the nearest subway.

The next day, we awoke at around the same time as before, and our little group took the subway to Central Park, as I had begged them to take a morning stroll with me! We decided on breakfast first, however, and sat down at a cute French cafe, with the best organic oatmeal EVER.

Today, my outfit was more business-y, and I am pleased to say that I walked ten miles in those booties! You may recognize this outfit from my March Lookbook, too!

Central Park never ceases to amaze me, even after Joe Goldberg attacked Peach in a creepy, secluded tunnel (seriously though,You needs to hurry up with season two). The day before had soaked us all to the bone, but today was mostly dry and crisp enough to stroll along. We made it to Chuck and Blair's wedding location, took a few pictures, and turned around to head to the subway for our first meeting of the day: The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal was in the News Corp building, which also houses Fox and other news stations. We met with Annemarie Dooling, whom we had met at Vox Media last year. She brought three others in to tell us about what they did, and how it was a different form of journalism than the fashion industry. One woman who spoke to us talked about broadcast, and my ears perked up! As I've said before, I love writing for magazines, but broadcast is still super fun and exciting and I would love to work with it one d

She took us on a tour of the newsroom, which I wasn't allowed to take pictures of, but it looked exactly like what you would picture it to be! Messy, cluttered, with people running around, and amazing. She also walked us past the set for the news station, and I was able to poke my head in!

To conclude the tour, she showed us "the wall," which housed the logo of the WSJ and all of their certificates and prizes.

Once we left, we crossed over a few blocks and ended up in Times Square, where we just wasted some time before we had to hop on the subway again!

Our next meeting was again at One World Trade Center, and was the one I had been looking forward to the most: Allure.

If you're a themadisongreer.com regular, you may know that going to Allure last year and meeting with Madisen Theobald made me realize that I wanted so badly to work for a magazine. She recognized me from last year, which I thought was super cool and genuine, and she took us up to the twenty-fourth floor.

They had recently just moved floors, so there were a few boxes scattered about, but for the most part, it was pretty clean! I was impressed! Madisen had also recently just been promoted to social media manager, so she introduced us to her team, who all sat at a long desk together. She showed us her desk, let us poke our heads into the beauty closet, and then took us to the product table, which is where the put free things that anyone can grab from PR boxes they receive.

Then she took us to Condé Nast's cafeteria, which was a cool café-style set up with super yummy and fresh looking foods. While we were walking past, we actually saw someone who we had met with the day before at Self, who stopped over to say hi!

At this point, I was towards the front of our group while Madisen led us on the tour, and she asked how I was doing and what I had been up to. I told her about this very blog and website, and how she inspired me to work on it! It was amazing to be able to tell her all about it and what I've learned since starting it, and how she was a big part of it.

To finish the tour, she took us up to the sixty-fourth floor, which is the overlook on the top of the building. Almost the entirety of the walls are just glass, so you can view the entire city. The layouts of the floor plans are pretty open, so you can wall around the circle and view the city from all sides. You get an amazing view of the Brooklyn bridge, the Statue of Liberty and the harbor, the Oculus, and even the Empire State Building.

After reuniting with Madisen, we headed over to Little Italy for a Glossier trip, where we waited in a line that went halfway down the block. I ended up buying their newest Balm Dot Com (mango!) and some moisturizer/primer. Obviously, I had to take a mirror selfie! Sadly though, the You Look Good mirror was too high up, and didn't get my entire outfit, so we'll settle with this one.

Dinner was a few blocks over at this cute little Italian place, complete with fun, singing entertainment. I had the best ravioli ever, in marinara filled with spinach and garlic. It was to die for!

I was craving something sweet after, so our group took a detour to a matcha ice cream shop. I opted for strawberry, in a chocolate cone, with a thin sheet of 24k gold placed lightly on top. It was so cool! The gold itself was extremely light, so the slightest touch would make it crumple up. It didn't have much of a taste, as it was mostly aesthetic purposes, but it's cool to experience it!

We headed back to the AirBnb then, since it was getting extremely cold and dark, and everyone was complaining about their feet hurting. We packed back up and left the next morning!

Going on this trip again made me realize how I need to stop worrying so much about making it to my dream job at Condé Nast as quickly as possible. It will come, but I need to enjoy the opportunities I have before then to help shape me and determine exactly what I want to do. I made a ton of new friends, and I have grown as a person since starting my journalism career. I'm already looking forward to next year.

xoxo, Madison