This summer felt almost like a dream to me. I still can’t get over how lucky I was to have been given the opportunity to work and live in this concrete jungle for three months while still in college. But then again, it all did start from a dream. And after dreaming it, I worked as hard as I could to achieve it and went extra milestones in order to do so, and I did it. I worked a full time job with normal forty hour weeks, but also had a remote internship to keep me busy in the little amounts of free time that I had aside from that.
As college students, the opportunities can be endless if you try hard enough to put yourself out there; especially in the big apple. As much as we need these companies to help us build our resume and to gain experience, these companies need us. They seek young, motivated people who are willing to put themselves out there and give their best effort for various tasks. They also count on our support for their own growth in order to look for any new ideas or progress that could be made from an outsider’s perspective, as well as qualities that they want in future employees. With the amount of companies and businesses that there are in New York City, you can imagine how many internship positions are available for us students.
Maybe you don’t like big cities, and don’t see yourself living in New York later in life. That is totally understandable, as I know that it is certainly not for everyone.
Even if this were the case for me, I feel that this experience helped grow me as a person and brought a completely new perspective on the value of hard work in life. Everywhere you go in this city you are surrounded by a diverse crowd of motivated and hard-working people, making it difficult to not acquire the same mentality. With how many people there are in this city, it is certainly easy to feel like you are just a small fish in a big sea. However, observing this forced me to put myself out there in ways I never would have imagined myself doing. Doing this, I realized how many other people were in the same exact position as me and came to the city without knowing a soul. The amount of other interns that I met was very unexpected but made the experience of meeting people just that much better. One night, I attended a networking event by myself, and met various people in the music industry that I was able to easily connect with. I would just walk up to someone and start asking them about what they did and the rest came natural. Even after the event ended, I didn't have any plans for the rest of my night; so I just walked right up to a group of people who had just left the event as well, and were talking about the Kanye and Taylor Swift drama a month or so ago. I completely jumped into the conversation and after talking for about twenty minutes, I ended up heading to a bar with them. I was able to make friends with this random group of people who all already knew each other, and who happened to work at a very successful company in the music industry. Would I have done this anywhere else or in any other city? Probably not.
This is just one of the many examples that made me realize the importance of being able to put yourself out there and how it can lead you to be successful and meet incredible people. New York City is one of the most perfect places to do this.
Yes, it might have only been for a few months, but these few months were enough to give me the courage and confidence to know that I could see myself living and keeping up with this city later in life as I have always dreamed of. From learning to navigate the city on the subway rides so packed that you can smell the deodorant on the person next to you (or lack thereof), to the stunning rooftop bars that nothing can beat, to the $1 pizza places that are open twenty-four hours, and to the incredible people that strive for success; there is absolutely no city like it.
