Anonymous asked: How can I make sure that I maintain contact with people from my journalism internships?
Um, add them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter?
Here’s the thing: there’s no point in attempting to maintain relationships that aren’t meaningful relationships for you or the other person in the relationship. So sending emails to say hello to someone who you met briefly on an internship is not that useful, no matter how important they are — the unfortunate fact is that you will have been immediately replaced by another intern, so if you haven’t established something beyond an acquaintance, it’s likely to be an out of sight, out of mind kind of scenario.
So: focus on getting to know the people you work with not just because you think they can help your career, but because they’re interesting people you have something in common with. If you do this, maintaining contact — and a meaningful relationship — should happen quite organically. If people aren’t open to these kinds of connections (and this is not necessarily a sign that they are mean; most often, it’s just a sign that they are busy) then the fact is that they are probably not going to be that engaged in helping you with your career anyway.
