In January 2013, myself and nine of my Coe peers traveled to New York City to take part in Coe's New York Term. We spent a semester in the city, participating in an internship(s) and seeing a variety of cultural events that were either theater, cinema, art, dance, or music related. For each cultural event, the ten of us were accompanied by a New York Term professor. Our five professors are truly the best of the best; they are well-known in their areas of expertise and wanted to see every one succeed during their time in the city.
Below, I've created a database of sorts containing information on several aspects of my experience. I'll start with the basics, such as where I stayed and where I worked and then give a brief overview of the required, class events I attended and other things in the city I was able to enjoy.
On the weekends, I was only two blocks from Central Park and either two or five blocks from the main subway line that runs from the Bronx, through the west side of Manhattan, Times Square, and ends in the Financial District. For food, we were close to several Starbucks, Coffee Beans, a Trader Joe's, a Fairway Market, Zebars, and just about any sort of food you can imagine. And of course, if for some reason the Upper West Side didn't have what you were looking for, you could order your dinner from the comforts of the hotel with a laptop sitting comfortably on your lap.
Internships: I was fortunate enough to secure two internships for my semester in NYC. While 20 hours is the target and ideal amount of time a student "should" work during the term, I racked up 30.5 hours a week. And looking back on the term, I wouldn't have done it any other way. My main internship was at the New York Public Library as their Community Outreach intern and then on Fridays, I was at the Paley Center as one of their Social Media interns.
The New York Public Library: This was my dream internship because I'm planning on pursuing a graduate degree in library science. I found this internship through one of our New York Term professors, Susan. She actually knew a famous NYPL librarian who has since retired. This librarian put me in touch with my future bosses, Nick and Brigid, who helped to create my internship! At NYPL, I worked at the Mid-Manhattan branch, working on a variety of projects. My largest project was laying the foundation for our Veteran Oral History Project. This project allowed me to travel to the Bronx to interview veterans at the VA and learn so many interesting things about World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and 9/11. I also had the opportunity to return to the Bronx to read to adults in a nursing home and work with teens at a branch to start a Music & Memory drive. When I had some down time, I helped Sarah, the Correctional Services librarian, to write letters to prisoners and work on organizing their collection. Finally, I got to blog and wrote several blog posts that can be found on NYPL's website.
The Paley Center: I found this internship through my friend, Alison, who also worked there (it was nice to have someone to eat lunch with!). I find social media fascinating (I love love love my Twitter) and this internship allowed me to see how social media is handled at a cultural institution. My jobs focused around Paley Fest, a large two week event in LA where current TV shows have hour long panels. I wrote and scheduled tweets and Facebook posts, worked on the platform Storify, and helped to gather data collected from Tweet Deck and Google Analytics. I loved this internship at well and I might have accidentally fell in love with a couple of TV shows. Whoops!Cultural Events: While the internships gave me amazing life experience and fabulous connections, what really sets Coe's New York Term apart is the cultural events aspect. With our five professors, we saw 38 cultural events. While some events were stronger than others, I can proudly say that overall, every performance was well-done and had redeeming qualities. I've included below what we saw, with link to New York Times article or videos to help you get the gist of the sorts of events I attended.
Theater: The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes, Belleville by Amy Herzog, Old Hats starring Bill Irwin and David Shiner, Henry IV Part One by Shakespeare (woot!), Macbeth by Shakespeare in a Japanese adaptation by Mansai Nomura, and Motown: The Musical.
Art: Visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), the Cloisters, the Frick Collection, the Modern Museum of Art (MoMA), the collections at the New York Public Library Stephan A. Schwarzman Building, the National Academy Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian.
Music: Brentano String Quartet, Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, London Philharmonic Orchestra, A Streetcar Named Desire (in opera) at Carnegie Hall, Chano Dominguez and Flamenco Jazz, and Julliard Organists.
Dance: The New York City Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia, Yvonne Rainer and Group, Karole Armitage Dance Company, Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Romeo & Juliet performed by the Pacific Northwest Ballet.
Cinema: Visiting the Museum of the Moving Image, A Late Quartet, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Little Fugitive, Dans La Maison (In the House), the Prelinger Archives, Stories We Tell, and Rural Route Film Festival.