Changing goals

      Studying abroad has absolutely changed me both personally and professionally. Professionally, my internship taught me that I know marketing is the right field for me. This was my first experience in a major marketing department. I’ve had experience in small marketing departments, but this internship focused on the marketing you can’t learn in a classroom. I learned how to do everything from writing a creative brief, plan and execute a budget, how to work across teams, social media marketing, planning a photoshoot and so much more. I never thought I’d be able to have this much experience before even leaving college. Doing all these tasks and working across all these teams assured my decision that marketing is the right field for me. I love the fact that I was always on my feet and constantly interacting with people to get a task done. I’ve learned that you when you have a large business like the Sydney Opera House, having a solid team behind you is essential. As for me personally, I now know that I want to be a world traveler. I never want to be the person who stays in one city the rest of my life. I would love to travel as a part of my career and see all different parts of the world. Studying abroad has given me the travel bug – I’m already planning trips for this summer.

One more week

As my time in Australia is slowly coming to an end, I've done a lot of reflection on these past three months. For one, the time absolutely flew by. Of course, I missed my family and friends - but the new people I've met will forever share the bond of Australia with me. There's a group of about 10 of us who've bonded and clicked from the start. We're basically a family! After spring break, we became a lot closer and went on adventures every weekend together. This past weekend, 7 of us went to this giant waterfall called Kelly-Falls. The website said an "easy hike", we ended up scaling rocks and coming out with a few cuts, bruises, and leeches. It was all worth it to spend the day with some of my best friends and see an incredible waterfall. The water was absolutely freezing, but obviously, we still jumped in. I'm pretty sure my body went into shock when I first jumped in, worth it for the Go Pro video.

Okay - now for the serious reflections. What surprised me most about studying abroad is a common question people ask. I'd say I was most surprised about the different culture. Australia is very Americanized, with American brands, speaking English - I didn't expect to come here and have a completely different culture of people. Everyone here is so laid back and very outdoorsy. I love it! They're all about "good vibes" here and love to live life. Australians value personal relationships and being able to joke with their mates. Also, everyone calls you mate here and I've picked up the habit. I'm trying to bring it back to the States. But, when I first arrived I was so thrown off about the personal attention and interest in my personal life from everyone in school, work, the CAPA staff, and even Australians I'd meet. It's very different from what it's like at home with everyone minding their own business.

One thing I wish I knew before I came to Australia was how fast time actually flies by. We've been here for around 14 weeks, coming here you'd think that's heaps of time! In reality, those weeks went by like days. Some advice I have for people studying abroad or traveling for an extended period of time: know what you want to do, and do it. Making plans for weekend trips and actually following through with plans is what made my trip so fun. I've seen so many people want to do things, yet they never made the plans to actually do them. You're only here for a short period of time - you can sleep when you're home!

This week's finals week and my last week of work - I'll keep you updated on how I finish off the semester! I'm sure I'll be posting more sappy stuff, but until then, talk to you soon, mates!

Another day at the Sydney Opera House

Yes, another day at the Sydney Opera House!

I only have two more working days at the most iconic building in Australia, I'm slightly depressed. These past two weeks have been hectic. Last week I was preparing for my co-worker's leave and this week I'm covering for her leave. I'm doing the regular workload that I would do on a daily basis while covering half of her workload AND managing the April School Holidays!

I'll start with our Well Being campaign. Remember when I told you guys about having to be a yoga model? Well lucky for me, the shoot got rained out so the yoga instructors ended up rescheduling and doing a shoot of their own - no downward dog for me. Our fitness classes are offered 7-8am Monday-Friday. I signed up for this weeks Monday and Wednesday class - Monday I worked to sign people in so I came in an hour early. Turns out, Sunrise at 7, the news program was filming a posed yoga class at 6am as well as the High-Intensity Class at 7am. So, I show up at 6am, ready to work, and turns out I have to join the posed yoga class (front and center, no less) for them to film us and put us on live television! It was actually a really cool experience to see this side of marketing, I've never been a part of a photoshoot or a filming for the news. Wasn't my best angle, but it was still a cool experience!

As for work, my brochures were put on hold because there's a new law in Australia about clarity with pricing. Apparently, Australian Government passed a law to require businesses to be 100% clear with pricing no "starting as low as...". I actually really appreciated this! Being a consumer, having the honest pricing displayed helps me make more informed decisions. But they are to go to print next week, don't worry - my boss said she'll mail me the prints so I can add them to my portfolio :)

My school holidays campaign is going swimmingly. It's my first campaign so I didn't really have an idea how to track the sales, what to do to increase sales, how to manage the website and apparently we're scheduling a photo shoot! I found out this week that the Kid's team wants to have new photos for this school holidays, so there's some last minute planning to schedule a photo shoot for this Saturday (scary because it's already Thursday). Anyway, the campaign is going well, a few bumps but overall I'd label it a success half way through.

Oh yeah - I was able to see one last show last week! Total I've seen 6 shows at the Sydney Opera House in 3 months! How crazy is that? I'm not ready to talk about the fact that I only have 2 work days left...we can talk about that next week. For now, I'm living in the moment and enjoying each day - so I'll think about leaving next week.

Gold Coast

Sorry for going MIA these past two weeks - as you can image, this last month is unbelievably busy. I'm going to split up these next few posts just for your sake so you don't have to read paragraphs on paragraphs.

So, this post is dedicated to my last weekend trip in Australia, the Gold Coast! A few of my friends and I went north a few weekends ago to experience the last bit of Australian summer. Since 1 March, it has been Autumn in Australia, but it felt like summer until around 1 April - the day we left. Since the Gold Coast is up north, it was so warm and beautiful! It was around 85 degrees, which was the perfect temperature to relax on the beach. The town reminded me of Miami, there were large skyscrapers right on the coastline and beaches that lasted for miles.

This city was arguably the most Americanized city I've visited since my time in Australia. It was a clear tourist destination, less locally populated. The main skyscrapers were condos and hotels, not businesses or apartments. Also, the town was very small which reminded of touristy beach towns found along the coast of New Jersey. During this trip, our group mainly just relaxed and enjoyed a low-cost vacation. We had been going away weekend after weekend experiencing new cities, it was nice to travel to a new city but still have a relaxing time. The beaches there all looked relatively similar, which is different than in Syndey. In Sydney, each beach is a different experience with a different atmosphere - while at the Gold Coast, there are literally miles of coastline. The one beach that was my favorite was Burleigh Beach,  the sand was made from seashells near the rock pool! Oh yeah, that's another thing about Australia - there are all these natural rock pools near the beaches. These rocks act as a natural barrier between the ocean and the pool and create this natural ocean water pool. It's safe to say that going back to beaches in the States will be pretty disappointing...

During the trip, we also rented jetskis. I've been jet skiing before, but I've never ACTUALLY gone until then. I went with my friend Andy, and he goes often and we had competitions on who could whip the other off the back. In the wise words of our jet ski instructor, "if you don't fall off you're not going fast enough". I walked away with a few bruises, but it was well worth it.

There weren't many locals at the Gold Coast, but apparently it is referred to as "The Vegas of Brisbane" which is a city about 45 minutes away. It's one of the most popular cities in Queensland, Australia. That's another thing about Australia, there are few cities with dense populations and sparse population in the bush and the outback. For being the same size as the US, Australia has a smaller population than New York state alone - probably because of all the deadly animals! After this weekend, we all settled into a state of slight depression with the realization that we only had three weeks left in Australia (1 1/2 now). The most we can do it take each day on its own and make the most of the rest of our time here.

Melbin Mates!

Over the Easter Holiday weekend, a few of my friends and I head off to Melbourne, Australia for some exploring. We left Friday afternoon, giving us enough time to finish up some last minute homework and came back Monday night. Melbourne (pronounced Melbin in Aussie) and Sydney apparently have this huge rivalry of which city is the best in Australia. Sydney-siders don't pay much attention to this rivalry, because, well they know Sydney is better. But Melbourne, on the other hand, made it very clear that Sydney isn't the better city.

On Friday when we arrived, there was an incredible sunset over the bay in the St. Kilda neighborhood. This was outside of the central business district so it was a cute little area with small alleyways and coffee shops. The sunset was gorgeous, I love a good sunset. We even saw wild penguins off the one pier which was cool because I've never seen one outside of a zoo! The next day the five of us booked a tour for a Great Ocean Road trip to see the 12 Apostles. It was such an awesome day - we got picked up at 7am and had various stops along the way for food, hikes, views, and tours of certain areas. The 12 Apostles are these rock formations off the coast and they are incredible. As a matter of fact - there are only 8 Apostles but the name 12 Apostles sounded more appealing to tourists. On this trip, we were able to go caving and explore inside caves, rainforests and walk on different beaches. Melbourne is a bit cooler than Sydney so it wasn't warm enough to swim but everything was stunning so I didn't mind.
That night the craziest thing happened, we say the travel agent from our hostel in Cairns in Melbourne working as a travel agent for that hostel! What a small world. We got back to the hostel and saw Darrell, the travel agent and he came up to us and we all hugged and he showed us more places to go in the area that many tourists may not be aware of. The next day my friends and I explored CBD and went on our Easter Brunch. We now do the "phone rule" where you put your phones in the middle of the table and the first one to touch their phone has to pay the tip. It's a good way to get us off our phones and talk to each other. But we had Brunch and it was phenom. We went to the Comedy Festival for a bit and explored different areas like the graffiti walls. Melbourne is a very hipster city, to say the least. They love art and appreciate things of that sort which I love. We went to Hosier Lane, famous for graffiti art and I found someone with spraypaint and I wrote my infamous nickname on the wall: "kaymag". Then the group we rented bikes just to see where we could get lost. Olivia was dying the entire ride (because she's soft) but overall we were just messing around having a great time. Our last main adventure was going to the Brighton Bathing Boxes, which are these painted sheds on a beach which are very popular in Melbourne. We went on that Monday before catching our flight.

All in all, I loved Melbourne. It's actually the 4th farthest city away from Allentown, PA (sorry mom, dad and grandma). I'd call it a must-see attraction if you're in Australia! I liked the city, it was a very "hipster and good vibes" city however I'd chose Sydney over Melbourne simply because of the iconic nature of Sydney with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and all of those areas.
Since I was away Easter weekend, I obviously missed my Easter dinner at home - but my mom called me when the family was all together celebrating so I still felt part of the tradition! My grandma even sent me an Easter card (and Valentine's Day but I didn't check my mail until yesterday). Thanks, grandma! I'll see you all soon. As for this weekend - I'm headed off to the Gold Coast which is apparently home to the most beautiful beaches in Australia so that'll be relaxing. ~Stay tuned for more adventures of Kelsey~

Glass 1/3 full

                This week marks one month left on my three-month journey to the land down under. The crazy part about it is that it feels like a week ago that I was moving into my 8 people flat with half Pitt and half UMass girls. This week I was hit with the “after midterms now project and paper season”. I’m assigned a paper for each one of my classes and a group project for one class as well as one for my internship credit class. I’m going to Melbourne this weekend so obviously I was stressing to get all the work done in time – and that I did. I stayed on campus after class and came early on the days that I don’t have work before/after and got all my work done. Now I can go to Melbourne with nothing holding me back from having yet another memorable weekend!

                At work, this week was rather hectic. The rebranding collateral that I briefed in was due this week to be printed on 1 April – it was not done. The creative and my team could not agree on what we wanted our brochures to look like. After about a 2-hour meeting of putting both teams’ ideas together, we now have the final look we want. The brochures will go to print next week! Also at work, I was invited to participate in sunrise fitness classes at the House for free. I went on Monday for yoga, while it was tough to wake up, seeing the sunrise and reflect off the SOH sails – that was a pretty unreal feeling. These were the trial classes and will launch to the public in two weeks. I’m helping the campaign manager with this campaign as of this week, and this means I’ll be a “model” for the classes and have to pose for photos to go to print and online. I’m just hoping they don’t take any “downwards dog” photos. But I’ll go down in Sydney Opera House history!

                I’ve been getting closer with my co-workers, going to lunch, happy hours, and allocating 30 minutes after coming into work to chat. Speaking of, this is a cultural norm I’ve noticed about Australia – their work culture is very lax compared to the U.S. Every morning I used to walk into work, ask about everyone’s night/weekend and get to work. Now, I’ve learned that they perceive that as you being “cold” and not wanting to chat, when in my defense, this is how my previous work experience went. Every morning I walk in at 9am, chat with my team and the team that sits next to mine for minimum 30 minutes and then get to work. There is an unsaid rule of no meetings before 9:30am which I find so interesting! Definitely not complaining. Also this week, I saw an opera with my co-workers! It was the opera Turandot which is apparently an internationally renowned opera. It was outdoors with a view of the SOH and fireworks (which made it all worth it). It was drizzling on and off but our spirits were still high and we stayed until the end! Another bonding experience I had was with an Easter egg hunt today. I’m an honorary member of the social committee (because I’m part time), therefore, I went around our office with the other members and hid chocolate eggs. I ate about half in my bag, two hot-crossed-buns, and a giant stomach ache – but it was well worth it. I love how my team is so accepting and wants to include me in their culture, it goes a long way for an intern.

This week I did find time for myself outside of school and work. I went to Palm Beach over the weekend, which is the most northern beach in Sydney. It was a beautiful beach – even though the autumn weather is slowly kicking in. We hiked up to the lighthouse and overlooked the beach and the bay on the sunset. Beautiful view, I always try and catch the sunsets. Also, there was a rugby game hosted by CAPA, my educational program. There were about 30 of us who went to the Bulldogs rugby game which is held in Olympic Park, where the 2000 Summer Olympics were held. CAPA also negotiated us to go on the field and get a picture which was awesome! I had no idea what was going on, but I love the sports atmosphere so I still had a great time. During the week - I went to a cat café with one of my roommates, it was just as amazing as it sounds. For $20 AUD, I got a coffee, cookie and an hour with the cats. I’m honestly considering getting a membership for my last month here because I loved it so much.

                Now I’m off to Melbourne for the Easter weekend with a few of my friends here. Not going to be as good as my Easter meal would be at Grandma’s but it’ll do until I’m home. Happy Easter everyone!

Anyways, school and work

School is getting super busy. We just had our midterms which went pretty well. Their exams are pretty different from what I’m used to at Pitt. I had one that was all handwritten for my Marketing Communications class. I’ve had essay exams before, but this exam was more qualitative so my grade is up to the subjectivity of my professor. I think I did well, though! My other midterm was an online exam that was taken in class. Now I’m swamped with papers and projects due within the final weeks of my time here. I’m actually taking a homework break now writing this blog! I’ve set up shop in the University next to my apartment complex, this library is a lot nicer and closer than making the 45-minute commute to ACU.

As for work, I’m also very busy! This week was my first week back after a week-long vacation. Of course, I came back to over 200 emails which I had to filter to see which ones actually mattered to me. Monday was mainly catching up with what I missed over the week. The rest of the week I was doing the content scheduling for our social media and eDMs, preparing for school holidays, one creative brief after another, and writing the copy for our advertising pages. I saw my first printed advertisement this week! I’ve been writing in the copy and photographs for a multitude of pages, I just never saw the results. I had to act as a tourist (not that hard, since I am one) and go to the City of Sydney information center to see what collateral there was for the Sydney Opera House. I picked up the magazine that I know we advertise in, and there it was. My two page spread in Where magazine, March edition. It’s exciting to see the work that I’m doing being implemented because I actually feel a part of something more than just another internship. 

Also, the perks are pretty nice too. I saw an opera this week, The Barber of Seville. If you work at the Opera House, you need to see an opera – right? I actually enjoyed it, I went in not really knowing what an opera would be like and I came out a new woman (not really, but you get the idea). I’m also doing sunrise yoga at the House this coming Monday. I’m not much of a morning person, but when offered free yoga and breakfast – I’m in. The other two interns and I signed up together, so we’ll all suffer through the 5:00am alarm together. Apparently, we’re also “models” for the future yoga classes held. So there will be a photographer taking pictures of us that will be posted to social media and for advertisements (hoping for no downwards dog photos, please).

I’m settling in quite nicely here, it’s hard to believe that I’m living in Australia sometimes. I’ll be going about my day as normal, and sometimes I’ll just get hit with a wave of “I can’t believe I’m living in Australia, what the hell.”