I put on my big girl pants and made my way to Boston for an unpaid internship in children’s publishing.

Before I left Pittsburgh, a handful of people looked at me with pity in their eyes and uttered some variation of, “Oh…you know it’s difficult to get into publishing, right?” (After much research, I did know that it was a notoriously difficult industry to break into.) “You have to know someone.” (I did not know anyone in the industry.)

But I did it. I found my way in, navigat...