This morning I woke up to find an email from a 2004 graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course in my inbox. My heart goes out to this young woman. She’s in the process of learning that CPC isn’t able to apply its “90% Job Placement” rate to everyone, and that intoning “ineedajobineedajob” in your head for several months can start to take its toll.

I emailed her back right away, and my biggest advice to her (which I’ll share here in the hopes that perhaps it will help other disgruntled CPC students past, present, and future) was to keep in touch with her classmates.

CPC may be touted for its hot connections in the industry and for its job placement rates (which some might debate as a little misleading), but the true value of the course in my experience was the people that I met. L.H. (the director the course) may not find quite as many jobs as quickly as CPC’s literature claims, but she’s got great taste in candidate selection.

The Friday night of my wedding weekend, the couple dozen of us who were there early gathered around a campfire and my mother insisted we do “circle time.” She wanted each person to do that ice breaking exercise where they step forward and introduce themselves while doing a silly motion, and then everyone has to repeat both their name and the motion. I.e. “Hi, my name is ARIEL! [flaps arms around like a chicken having a seizure]” Then everyone says, “Hi, ARIEL,” while imitating my chicken seizure routine. I nixed this idea (please appreciate the fact that I managed not to say, “PLEASE, mom, YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME.”), but we did all go around and introduce ourselves and say where we were from. Many folks also included their relationship to Dre and me.

As we went around the circle, it became apparent that perhaps sizable chunk of the gathered crowd was made up of CPC classmates and guests. “Hi, I’m Ashley, and I met Ariel at CPC.” “My name is Terra, and I’m from New York, and I went to Columbia with Ariel.” “Hey, I’m Amanda, and I was at CPC, too.” “My name is Kevin, I’m from New York City, and I was also a CPC classmate of Ariel’s.”

Afterwards, my mother noted to me how remarkable it was that a two month course (that I was admittedly overwhelmingly bitter about when it finished)resulted in so many people who, three years after the fact, were willing to travel across the country to share our wedding with us. I was reminded of all the classmates who weren’t there who I’m still in touch with, as well… Lina, my editor at Figure. Liz, my proto-lit agent at SKA. Amy, my favorite bitter donut advice columnist. Nikki, finishing up her third year of law school. When Andreas and I were in Madrid, we stayed with Javier, my CPC classmate Ashley’s former roommate. We wouldn’t have had our amazing five days of drinking and smoking with him if it weren’t for CPC.

Even though I found the course to be frustrating in terms of immediate results (or complete lack there of), the long term results have been remarkable. Three years after finishing CPC, many of my classmates who stayed in New York and suffered through assistant salaries are starting to move up the ladder and become Very Important People. I may have bailed out on the New York Dream, but I have lasting friendships with folks who stayed. And I have CPC to thank for that.

So, young CPC grasshoppers, soldier through your frustration and disappointment. Take solace in each other. Granted, $6k to make friends isn’t what I’m used to paying, but in the long run, I think it’ll pay off, as long as each student makes a commitment to rely on one-another instead of the higher-ups. Fellow CPC-grads, do you have any advice? Leave it in the comments.