In about one month from now, I will be sitting in a plane heading towards New York. Yes, The Big Apple. But this time it will not be the mandatory annual visit to my family and friends. For three months, until shortly before my 22nd birthday, I will be a research assistant for a professor at a New York University. What my exact duties will be, I will find out once I get there. Plus, I will be attending a course on New York history. All this will be my “abroad experience” for my resume but primarily also for myself. Live in the city I call my home for longer than a few weeks, experience the American University and discover.

It all sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it? Well, it definitely is! But then I think about everything I will not have across the big pond. You, you, you and especially you. Calling my best friend: “Want to grab a coffee, like now?” Parties. Moves. Birthdays. Many little things that may happen within the next months. Then again, if one only thinks about that, why would anyone ever leave to go somewhere else? Right, never. So my plan is: enjoy the following month to its fullest, spend lots of time with family and friends and be completely truly excited to be in one of the greatest cities in the world, but not holding back a small tear.

Since I am planning a longer stay abroad in the US and my professor, who I want to hold the mid-term-studies exam will not be at University starting August, my exam will be preferred. I was expecting a date around June / July.

On last Thursday, the date was set. In almost exactly one month, on May 28th at 11a.m. I will have to deal with ”The Influence of the First Ladies on the American Women in the 20th Century”.

In almost exactly one month, on May 28th at 11:31a.m., I will (hopefully!) be greeted by friends and we will spend a wonderful, relaxed afternoon in the park.

My last week was again shorter, since Easter Monday was a holiday here. And also in the rest of the world it was really quite. But one really big highlight followed: I was asked to translate and subtitle the whole interview that I had done last week all by myself. It was lots of fun and it was also something different, than always writing articles. Other than that, everything else mostly was as usual.

On Friday at noon, I also got my internship certificate, which turned out to be extremely positive, so that when I got home, I did a little happy-dance!

Upshot Radio-Internship

After being thrown in at the deep end and after getting used to the frequent writing, everything went great. At the beginning, everything was completely new and unknown, at the end it was routine and much fun. I can surely say that I learned a lot in the past eight weeks: Writing a lot, topic selections and also translating, writing subtitles and doing interviews. It was a representative internship for a peek into the big world of work and into the field, in which I hope to be later on in life.

Previous to the internship, I would not have put the radio or online editor on the top of my list for future job wishes. But now, it jumped very far up on that list ;)

The week started out with me being able to think about a topic, which I wanted to write about. I chose “Get ready for Spring” and researched several topics for the theme. I ended up writing about how to get your bike and car ready for spring; how to do your spring cleaning so it’s fun; Spring Fashion Trends 2010 and how to get yourself going for Spring. The best part was that my boss hardly changed the texts and really liked my work. A good start into the week!My first photo gallery this week was called “Sexy World Cup – Fans” from the World Cup 2006 in Germany. It was intended as a teaser what may be coming up this year in South Africa. While looking for photos, I wondered who actually voluntarily poses for photos like that…

Towards the end of the week I was instructed to write a portrait on an uprising German Fitness-Entertainer, Patric Heizmann. Seems like an interesting personality.

On Thursday there was this general intern meeting, where all the interns got invited by the big boss. I figured that we’d be around 6, but it turned out that the whole place currently has close to 20 interns! I was really impressed. And I thought it was nice that the big boss actually took over one hour time and answered questions.

Upshot: This week actually was pretty stressful. I had a lot to do and I really felt that on Friday. Not did I only have an afternoon depression, but also a morning and noon depression. There was no way I was able to find motivation at all that day. Meanwhile my routine in writing has gotten better, though. What I learned this week: Don’t use too many expletives and write directly to the point.

On Tuesday was my big day: I wrote about Giant George, the largest dog in the world. And landed on the homepage! All the way at the bottom, but hey, I thought that was pretty cool!

A photo gallery on “Sexy Winter Olympics” followed, with the prettiest men and women at the 2010 Olympics in Canada. And it turned out that the US earns the gold medal in that category. For the men I recommend to look closer at Julia Mancuso; for the women I recommend Chad Hedrick! The Germans on the other hand didn’t really have anything to offer. My photo gallery actually was on air the next day, too. The moderator who does the morning show mentioned the pictures and recommended to check them out.

And since my first photo gallery was a hit, I did another one on the latest Hollywood trend: Beards. Who’s interested in it, is the next question. I personally think that you can overdue it with a beard – a three day old beard can look very good, but longer than that it just looks…weird!

At the end of the week I was ‘allowed’ to write a portrait on the Irish Boyband Westlife. So fun! Not. Luckily, I wasn’t pressured to listen to their new album…

The working atmosphere is really nice now. The first sniffing around is over and I’m getting to know everyone beyond the first impression.

Upshot: It was defintely a good second week. I was able to write a lot and most of it got posted on the website. I’m feeling compfortable there and am slowly getting a better routine in writing. Sure, it isn’t that much fun writing on V.I.Ps so frequently, but practise is practise. In the end, I think it’ll pay off.

Let’s go back into the old year 2009 for a minute: Last summer, shortly before my vacation in the US, I stumbled over an ad on the website of a local radio station. They were looking for an intern for their online-editor team. Interesting, I thought immediately. But the time frame they were looking for did not fit into my semester breaks. I wrote an e-mail anyways, was able to submit my resume, got an interview two days later and was offered the spot!

Now, a half a year later, I had my very first day last Monday. I have to admit that I was nervous but also curious at the same time. I mean, it is my first, pure media-internship!! The day started out pretty well: I didn’t get lost on the way and arrived on time. Firstly I was introduced to the online-editors-team and showed around, got my key and then started typing right away. And that with the help of my forerunner, who was still going to be there for two days. She showed me the editor program and I made notes where to find pictures, use Photoshop, add the links and where to add the text…

And the last thing was the most difficult thing of it all: What I was told for the past year and a half at university, I simply had to forget. Instead of long sentences, I now had to write short and direct ones. After a few wrong attempts, I figured out in which style the texts should be and on my first day there, my very first text went online!

For the rest of the week I continued to write texts on celebrities and Oscar nominees. I even made my first photo gallery and wrote my first album recommendation. Sometimes it went really well, other times I had to rewrite and start all over again…

Upshot: It is all pretty new and I did have the feeling of being thrown into a deep end. Some days went really well, others were just like “Help!?”. But I guess that’s pretty normal for the first week. I’m still curious how the next weeks will turn out. My internship goes until the beginning of April – so stay tuned…