Students from St. Thomas Aquinas College will visit Hachette Book Group in New York City on Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. The bus will leave campus at 9 a.m. that day and should return by 1 p.m. Director of Career Development Maureen Mulhern, Dr. Staci Shultz, Professor Monica Wendel, and Professor Mariellen Murphy-Holahan will accompany students on this trip.

Mulhern, who is organizing the trip, detailed how it will run. Students will have the opportunity to meet with professionals in the department of human resources and learn about a plethora of jobs and internships within the book publishing company. Employees of these various occupations may talk to students about the work that they do and answer any questions that students may have. They are not just writers, publishers, and editors.

“It [going on the trip and asking questions] could build a good connection with a recruiter at the firm to open some doors for you and you learn from this trip what they really are looking for in a cover letter when you apply and what they are looking for when they interview you,” Mulhern said.

This is the first time that STAC students are visiting Hachette Book Group, but Mulhern has held trips to other book publishing companies in the past, such as HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster. She said that she works closely with Shultz and Wendel, two of the English professors at STAC, when organizing these trips.

Wendel, who teaches various classes in English and Creative Writing at STAC, described the benefits of such a trip. She said that it opens the eyes of students to the process or series of steps taken after a book is written until publication. In other words, it answers the question, “What happens next?”

“From the point where the author hands in a draft all the way through publication, you get a sense of all the different jobs there are and all the different job opportunities there are in publishing,” Wendel said.

A common misconception about working or interning for a book publishing company is that you need to be a writer or an English major. Mulhern stressed that from what she was taught that this is not the case.

“You aren’t limited by your major,” Mulhern said. “They have careers for so many majors, including business… I just feel like there’s so many different areas that you can work in, it all comes down to: do you like that industry? Do you love to read?”

Mulhern emphasized how people of all interests, such as those who would like to work in the field of marketing, business, or law have a place in working or interning for a book publishing company. She noted how there are corporate positions available in the industry, and how Murphy-Holahan, who is attending the trip, is one of the professors within STAC’s School of Business. By going on such a trip, a student of any particular area of study has the potential to find internships. Of course, Mulhern finds that it helps if you love to read.

Wendel noted the diversity of jobs available in book publishing as well.

“This is a really good trip if you’re studying accounting, communications, any kind of business,” Wendel said. “They look to hire people from all different kinds of majors, so any of the business majors, communications, marketing, those are all really, really good majors.”

“It’s a really good industry to go into,” Wendel added.

Wendel described two alumni from STAC who she has taught who work for book publishing companies. She recalled that these former students, Jessica Mizzi and Ariana Carpentieri, both landed internships with book publishing companies during their senior years, and that Carpentieri now works for Tor, an imprint of Macmillan.

“[These are] two different graduates who took somewhat similar paths in order to find work in publishing,” Wendel said.

So, what does Wendel attribute these two alumni finding internships followed by jobs in book publishing companies to? Both Mizzi and Carpentieri utilized trips like this.

“It definitely helped, because they [Mizzi and Carpentieri] met the people, like you meet the people from HR, and it’s something to write about in your cover letter,” Wendel said. “And they also do a really good job of walking you through the process of applying for an internship and what exactly it is they are looking for in interns.”

Wendel recommended that students bring their resumes and a writing sample with them to Hachette Book Group.

Visit the Office of Career Development located on the upper level of the Romano Student Alumni Center on campus to sign up for this trip or any trip hosted by the department.

“You really get an idea of the facility and what life is like working inside that kind of organization,” Mulhern said of any trip through Career Development. “No two trips are exactly alike.”