NATHAN ANCHETA

Scene Editor

They say the major you choose in college for the most part will not determine what job you will have in the real world.

This statement is particularly true for ’05 Arts & Sciences graduate Rachelle Hruska.

In her time walking up and down the mall on campus, Rachelle was a Psychology major in the commonly shared Creightonian quest of becoming a physician.

Five years later, Ms. Hruska, 26, is jetting around the streets of New York City covering events and throwing parties as the editor-in-chief and founder of the popular Web site, guestofaguest.com – a trendy blog documenting social happenings around the city.

“I don’t remember anything about organic chemistry,” said Rachelle.

Today, Rachelle probably could not care less about carbon molecules. With operations based out of a brick studio office in the heart of NoLita, Rachelle’s online social calendar gets more than two million hits per month, mostly from young professionals in New York trying to find the latest hip gathering.

A Lincoln native, Rachelle attended Pius X High School. She chose Creighton not only for its pre-med program, but she also enjoyed the Jesuit liberal arts program.

“The thing about the Jesuits is that they are scholars first and foremost. I loved the fact that I had to take philosophy, I had to take Theology. A lot of these courses that a lot of other med schools may have overlooked. I just like the core curriculum of Creighton and Jesuits school in general that are liberal-based, and I think you get a well rounded education,” Rachelle said.

“I think I was like one class away from a minor in theology.”

At Creighton, Rachelle spent her free time getting into the blog mix. She enjoyed reading The Black Table and Gawker and had her own Blogspot called Brain Spillage.

“I was a regular college student, but I think I was a nerd at heart,” said Rachelle.

“I thought it was so interesting and cool. And it’s funny because now I know the writers of it [The Black Table], and I’m like, ‘I read you back when I was at Creighton!'”

After graduation, Rachelle decided to spend a summer backpacking through Europe. The trip opened her eyes to pursuing a new path in the world.

“I wasn’t ready to go back to go to med school. I was kind of burnt out and I was young.”

At 22 on a whim, Rachelle packed one suitcase and left for Manhattan, originally thinking she’d stay for only a couple months.

“People always ask me why did you choose to go to New York, and I can’t give a straight answer. It’s like one day I woke up and I said I want to move to New York City,” Rachelle said.

“My parents were like, ‘What are you talking about?'”

So Rachelle went online looking for a job. She met a woman living in an Upper-East side apartment looking for a nanny. A week after arriving in the city, Rachelle moved into the woman’s building.

Immediately, Rachelle fell in love with Manhattan.

“It’s just contagious energy. I knew I had to stay. I think New York is the greatest city in the world.”

After her three-month stint as a nanny, Rachelle worked random jobs including one for a month at an advertising agency. But Rachelle’s big break came when she landed a job at Baron Capital.

Rachelle’s role was secretarial, “typical of my age,” she said, but her curiosity in finance led her to go above expectations in helping analysts. Within four months she was working directly under the C.E.O., Ronald Baron. (“He’s called the Warren Buffett of New York.”)

Working for Baron propelled Rachelle into learning the ins and outs of the finance sector, even though she had never taken a business class before.

“I picked his brain on a daily basis. I think he was more than happy to share advice.”

After three and a half years at a steady, highly sought-after job, Rachelle took one more risk.

She quit.

“Leaving that job was the hardest decision I’ve made to date in my life. It was such a stable job. It was the only family I had in New York. It was very well paying, I had great benefits, it was just a cool environment.”

Her reason?

“It wasn’t my own.”

This led Rachelle to her most recent venture, a Web site.

In the months before leaving Baron, she had been keeping a blog under an anonymous identity. She wrote about new clubs and nightlife in Manhattan. She gained this information from her former employers in her days as a nanny.

“We’re talking about the owners of the best hotels, the best nightclubs. They were the ones that took me under their wing when I first arrived in Manhattan.

“They were kind of the only people I knew at the beginning, so I was forced to hang out with them, you know? So within the first week I was going to dinner with the cast of ‘Entourage’, and this was like when they were season one, or like hanging out at a table with the Olsen twins.

“It was unbelievably exciting. That’s why it was hard for me to think of going back to Nebraska. But I also knew it wasn’t for me. The nightlife. I knew I had to get a job. But that’s how I started to get all the connections.”

The blog began as a hobby, but her friend Cameron Winklevoss, who started his own Web site, ConnectU while at Harvard, pushed her into making Guest of a Guest a legitimate business.

“I was working really hard in finance but I would come home and I had this whole other world of knowledge . . . It gained a lot of exposure because I knew a lot of stuff going on in New York City that wasn’t being put out.

“People were like, ‘Who is this person putting all this stuff online that turns out to be true? It was like this fun little secret I could come home to.”

Rachelle officially registered the L.L.C. in March 2008 and the site has grown ever since.

The sensation around Rachelle’s site can be attributed to users’ desire to see what social events the tastemakers of New York attend.

“We get people past the velvet rope and bring it to their computers.”

GofG also sometimes gives out pairs of tickets to exclusive, invite-only parties, truly letting readers become ‘guests of a guest.’

“Everyone in New York has been a guest one time in their life.”

The site tries to provide an interactive experience to users so they’re not just on the outside looking in. They can create their own directory on the site and tag themselves in any party photos they’re in. Over 10,000 profiles have been created so far. Guest of a Guest photographers have created thousands of galleries documenting NYC bashes.

For the summer, Rachelle took her operation to the Hamptons, the playground for the wealthy of New York.

In May 2009, Marisa Meltzer of the New York Post crowned Rachelle as “Queen Bee” to New York’s blogging scene. But the title can be a bit misleading. Rachelle is not exactly Gossip Girl. Many of her posts spotlight causes, one for example, the American Heart Association.

Guestofaguest.com tries to stand out from the typical celeb gossip sites to showcase actual movers and shakers of NYC.

“We were really upset about the way celebrities were being covered. I mean I knew more about Lindsay Lohan that I did about my neighbors down the street.”

There are typically 20-30 total posts each day, ranging from revealing the filming spots of film productions in New York that day, to charity events. Sometimes both at the same time. Recently GofG broke a story reporting that a children’s benefit called Children Matter had to relocate due to “Gossip Girl” shooting at the same location.

“Bottom Line? Children Matter, but not as much as Gossip Girl does,” wrote Associate Editor, Chiara Atik.

The first post for each day is a fun meme called “The Best 2K I Ever Spent.” The name is based off a nightclub in the Hamptons where you have to put down $2,000 just for a table. The first ‘2K’ post was a “crazy guy, shooting champagne all over himself with these girls dancing next to him,” Rachelle said.

“It’s basically, ‘What was the most ridiculous photo from last night’s parties?’ Let’s find ‘That guy.'”

The post also includes pop icons around New York. Last week Jay-Z, Beyonce and Kelly Ripa were all featured in the ‘2K’.

Rachelle’s rapid success has gotten her recognized so much that other media outlets are asking her to break stories on their channels. Recently she did segments on CNBC and BloombergTV. Cosmopolitan has enlisted Guest of a Guest to do videos for their Web site.

Hruska was even featured in a highly established medium she seems to forgo. She had her own profile piece in the print edition of the New York Times.

“When you work really hard, it’s nice to be recognized.”

But Rachelle also recognizes all this work couldn’t be done without her staff. Guest of a Guest has a paid core staff of eight.

“With health care and everything. I have to get that out; there was a little confusion in the Times,” Rachelle says with a laugh.

One of her staffers is Sarah Kunst, Guest of a Guest’s event manager. Hailing from Michigan, Sarah first used GofG as a way of getting around NYC. Now she works with Rachelle up to 10 hours a day.

“[Rachelle’s] successes have so much to do with the genuine interest she has in other people. So many powerful people in the city count her as their close friend because of her innate intelligence and goodness,” Sarah said.

Perhaps Rachelle’s successes so far in life were envisaged by her ambitions back at Creighton. Dr. Isabelle Cherney, associate psychology professor and one of Rachelle’s academic advisors, recalled she “always seemed to have a lot of energy and her smile stands out.”

Rachelle says New York has definitely changed her, but she still retains her Midwest identity.

“I hope [New York] has changed me for the better, but I do know that much of who I am is where I’m from, which is Nebraska.”