I’m smart and experienced. Just look at my glasses and my money.

I’m beyond a greenhorn when it comes to the advertising industry. I have absolutely no experience in the industry. Okay, so technically I was a copywriter last semester in BU Ad Lab. I also helped speed write and edit a book on advertising in three hours.

But I’ve never spent any significant time in an agency. Sure, I’ve had the privilege of going inside great agencies like Hill Holliday, Allen & Gerritsen, McGarryBowen, and OMD.  But that’s not the same as working and spending time in an agency.

That’s all changed though. I finally got to spend time this summer as an account planning intern at PJA Advertising + Marketing in Cambridge, MA. PJA is an award-winning, primarily B2B-focused agency.

Here’s some observations from my two weeks on the job and my two completed semesters of grad school:

1. Leave Your Suit in the Closet

The Mad Men days of buttoning up are done for. As a more liberal field, advertising has moved away from strict dress codes. Even an agency like PJA, which works in some conservative fields, is mostly jeans and a button down. There’s beer and wine in the fridge too.

2. Get Out of the Closet

I spent all 4 years of my undergraduate career fighting for LGBT rights on a mostly closeted campus. In advertising, I don’t feel like I have anything to fight for. If I tell someone I am gay, it’s basically the equivalent of me telling them I have a thumb. No one cares. It’s an accepting environment where you are free to be you.

3. Put your Phone on Silent

The ad professionals I talk to aren’t kidding: advertising is a 24/7 job. It can be quite hard to balance work and play. If you want a job where you can completely separate the two, then advertising is not for you. You have to really love this industry. I’m the type that gets excited about ad placements, so I think I’m in a good place.

4. I’m Fluent in Spanish and Advertising

Advertising people in general use buzzwords that the average person would never know or use. They speak of things like touch points, native advertising, noise, and brand ethos. It’s interesting that an industry built on effective use of communication would use terms that would make the everyday person scratch their head.

5. Ad People are Wicked Smaht

They aren’t rocket scientists, but advertising people tend towards incredible intelligence. I’ve had the honor of meeting people in this business that are so smart and hardworking that it’s frightening. I’ve met scary-smart people like Edward Boches, CIO of Mullen, and Melissa Schulz, SVP, Global Group Account Director at Publicis Kaplan Thaler. The people at PJA have years of experience and are scary-smart in their own right.

6. Where are all the Black People?

It has been all over the news: for the first time minorities make up the majority of babies and toddlers. The minority is now the majority. Advertising doesn’t really reflect this. This might be because most people in advertising have a bachelor’s degree and many minorities lack access to affordable education.