First Three Weeks

The first three weeks of Career Explorations have, on the whole, treated us well. For most of us, this is not our first extended stay away from home. We know how we react to new people and new situations. We know what we like. We know what works for us and also what doesn’t. Some of us like to spend our free time in our rooms, catching up on sleep or summer reading. Others like to go out and find all of the food, entertainment, and fun rip-offs New York has to offer. Some of us choose to turn in early at night to be fresh for work or play the next morning. Others choose to stay up late socializing and making a ruckus with our new friends.

One of my favorite parts of this program, as with any such extended overnight program which attracts students from all over the country and world, is the time when we can share perspectives and experiences that I mightn’t otherwise have been able to hear. When we discuss our internships, I can’t help but note the broad diversity of fields and business types represented in our placements; at the same time, though, we share everyday work activities that betray a universal plainness. No matter what our internships, we all seem to have learned a great deal more about stapling, binding, answering phones, creating spreadsheets, and fetching coffee in the past three weeks!

Another big part of life in the time we’ve spent here has been the sundry activities planned for us by the CE staff. I especially enjoyed the boat tour we took on the Circle Line around Manhattan and, of course, seeing the new Harry Potter movie in IMAX. We’ve also been to two Broadway shows, sampled different ethnic restaurants, attended street festivals and baseball games, and heard from a panel of professionals who work in our fields of interest about different career paths we might consider. We’re all afforded many opportunities here that we would not necessarily have had at home, by the staff and facilities of CE, by our internships themselves, and by our very location in the capital of world culture, economy, and entertainment. We also have some control over how to take advantage of what these unique circumstances offer us. I find spending my free time holed up in my room sleeping or reading has its consequences, and staying up on a weeknight talking and playing has its own as well. I find that for the effort I put into any job in the office, menial or stimulating, I am always repaid with a greater understanding of what a career in real estate investment means. Baseball games, Broadway shows, and book signings aside, it is the novelty of a profession which we each discover in the commonness of an unpaid high school summer internship that is the peculiar virtue of our experience, or at least my experience, thus far at Career Explorations.