Self-Motivated ERIC DIEP
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f you were to ask former VIBE intern Keenan Higgins’ favorite moment of his internship experience, he wouldn’t give you just one. “Definitely covering the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival and going to Rock the Bells,” he says. Near the end of his seven month internship, he found out about these events happening in New York City. He offered to cover the Brooklyn HipHop Festival, which went on for six days, but also felt that this year’s Rock The Bells needed some attention as well. As a proper send-off, VIBE was able to get him some guest passes, where he was able to network, make new connections, and provide the magazine with exclusive content. While this was one of many rewards, he says the best moment during his Rock The Bells coverage was watching Nas perform Illmatic. “That’s my favorite hip-hop album, so I was like, ‘man I’m really here.’ Watching this concert with one of my favorite hip-hop artists,” he says. Higgins wanted to get an internship at VIBE to test his abilities as a writer. He recalls a day during English class, when his professor complimented on his writing: “My professor told me, I write really well. [He said] I should think of a career in writing,” Higgins says. This encouraged him to look deeper into the field of journalism. He had a passion for music, hoping to take on music journalism further at either VIBE or Rolling Stone. When he decided to apply at VIBE, he knew the internship would be perfect for his early career goals. “I wanted to get self-assurance,” Higgins says. “This is what I wanted to do.” Two months in, Higgins got introduced to the wonderful world of transcribing interviews. “It can be fun at times because it lets you get the back story behind the story,” he says. He remembers transcribing a thirty minute interview, which took the majority of the day for him because it was his first one ever.
KEENAN HIGGINS
Deciding to continue his stay at VIBE after the semester was over; he had plenty of time to improve his transcription speed. He was look to as the intern with the most seniority, helping out new faces with posting content on VIBE.com. When it came around to the intern project, he was appointed as editor-in-chief for VIBE: The New Edition. Some of his duties included being a voice of reason, photography, coming up with the cover story and the deciding factor for divided issues. Higgins left VIBE and is currently an intern at Complex. He has taken the skills he learned at VIBE and carried them over to his new workplace. For one, he says transcribing interviews is much easier, taking him less time to do them then before. In terms of the workspace, he enjoys interacting with new personalities. However, the same mentality still applies. “It’s definitely different, but the struggle is still there, the grind is still there, at the end of the day, I’m a writer,” he says. “Wherever I’m at, I’m still going to be writing.” As a junior at Pace University, studying both journalism and photography, Higgins hope to find other internship that challenges him. There have been talks of The Fader, but he believes on keeping his options tightly-lipped to avoid any “jinxes.” But as far as achieving goals after graduation, he hopes to expand beyond music, possibly going into travel journalism or broadening his scope and cover more subjects. Like many of us who pursue our dreams, Higgins puts in all his hard work for a better future. “You have to realize all this intern work, the struggle, the hustle, ‘the grustle,’ it’s all going to pay off,” Higgins says. “One day I will get that call that I’ll get a steady job.” That time will come soon enough.
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