Making Connections

Work is not the only thing in an intern’s life.

While we as interns have to focus a lot of our intention on our internship and try to have the best experience possible, doing well at your internship is only part of having a great experience. Making friends while you are here is just as important as the doing well at work.

For me having travelled 3,000 miles to do my internship the idea of making friends is important particularly since I did not know anyone when I arrived here in New York. For the first few weeks I spent much time by myself. Partly because I noticed that many people who I live with in my residence knew each other or had friends that lived in the city. So trying to fit in seemed like a daunting task, until it dawned on that that is what they were trying to do. As much as people seem they are different they more they seem the same. Perhaps the best help to get to know people is the residence that I live in, which offers excursions and trips for the residents to various events and attractions and has offered me the opportunity to meet interesting and fun people. Knowing that there are other people who are of the same age that I am, and that are dealing with a lot of the same issues such as getting used to this city and their new internships is a major benefit and ice breaker of sorts. Having common ground helps, but living in the same building helps even more. Especially since the residence is more like a college dorm than an apartment building.

Still the transition has been made a lot easier when I met up with some fellow Cal State Fullerton graduates who are also in New York it felt like there was a piece of home here in New York and the experience was made all that much better and we chatted about how the recent storms we have been having have been more like California winters. In California the people would bundle themselves up. Here New Yorkers at times were walking in the rain without so much as an umbrella. I found myself doing the same thing on a few occasions. When in Rome do as the Romans do or you can always buy an umbrella from a street vendor who can be found at the entrance to a subway station hoping to sell one to the masses that make their exodus from the underground during rush hour.