Eric Schwartz, 21, is a senior at the University of Arizona majoring in journalism.

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Shiny new shoes? Check. Notebooks, pens and pencils? Check. Butterflies the size of Great Danes? Check. Deep breath, open the door, and walk into the summer internship.

I was eager to practice the skills I had worked so hard to achieve, and here I was, on the doorstep of a nationally distributed newspaper, The Forward, ready to prove my journalistic merit.

One of the best parts, as far as I was concerned, was that I would get to spend the summer in New York City — the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps. Of course, temperatures over 90 degrees and humidity off the scale made it a bit more difficult to wander down Broadway singing show tunes.

But New York is the home of some of the greatest journalists and newspapers in the world, and I was, of course, thrilled to be able to set myself up for a future career there.

Still, NYC. The big time. This was it and I was ready. Well, sort of ready.

Those first few days were a whirlwind. Between the copy editing, the fact-checking and trying to work on big stories for the special sections at the end of the summer, I quickly forgot to be nervous. I even managed to start calling my new co-workers by their first names.

Then came those first assignments. All the comfort I had felt vanished as I headed to a press conference with Shawn Green of the New York Mets. But I put on my "professional face," and, lo and behold, the whole thing went off without a hitch.

All the difficulties of a student journalist evaporated when I could prove that I was from an actual newspaper. The woman at the press entrance of the stadium looked down her list of arranged media, saw my name, and smiled as she handed me my press pass. Just like that, I was in. Meeting a professional baseball player didn't hurt my opinion of the profession either.

That's not to say an internship is all fun and games. Plenty of time and hard work went into my summer.

Some of the other interns were not as pleased with their experience.

A few were discouraged by the reality of what they had studied to do versus what they had imagined, and they vowed to find another career. Others had come to the internship full of confidence in their own prowess and skills and faced a rude shock at the high level of skill and experience actually needed.

I was a bit more modest: I hadn't had much published yet, and the humility about my own abilities certainly helped me keep an open mind when being edited.

Sometimes the assignments took on a strange life of their own. I wrote about Mr. Mitzvah, a would-be superhero on a reality show.

Researching and writing about a rich and extremely eccentric guy who wanted to be a superhero was probably the most fun I had all summer.

The point of an internship, or any job related to a future career done while still a student, is to give real-world experience. That's why internships are so valuable and why the best placements are often hotly contested.

Sweaty New York subways, deadline rushes, dealing with life beyond home and school. Some of the pressures of the real world. . . . Oh, yes, well worth it.

After all, if I can make there, I'll make it anywhere. . . .