The Final Spoon Intern Video!

Check us out as we taste test various NYC street food carts, providing you with the full scoop on what's good and what's not.

Final Reflections

My summer in NYC is officially over - which I still can't wrap my head around. After 11 weeks in the city, I can truly say I couldn't have imagined a better experience and for that reason, I feel so blessed. I was able to maintain an ideal schedule working at the Observer on Mondays and Wednesdays and at Spoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Fridays saved for ballet classes at Steps and seeing friends coming in from out of town. After a great first four weeks with my roommate Sarah, who was interning at the NYU Medical School, I was lucky enough not to be put with a random roommate and basically had a full studio apartment to myself! The extra bed actually came in handy for many of my friends to crash on, while visiting New York for the weekend.

Between meeting an incredible array of talented people in the city, including a great group of interns, (especially the lovely ladies at Spoon) and spending time with friends from college and high school, I can't say I ever really felt lonely in my roommate-less apartment. Although my internships are officially over, there are a few remaining articles that I will be coordinating to have published on the Observer website as well as the Spoon website and during the year, I will be joining the Spoon chapter at Wash U (which was started last fall!)

To be honest, I began this blog as a way to record my experiences for myself, so that I could remember details for reports I have been required to write, in order to receive school credit (for my internship at the Observer). However, soon after I began, I realized it had become much more than that, as I actually enjoyed keeping a running account of my activities and now it offers me an invaluable opportunity to look back on my time in the city (in a totally tangible way). To all who read through my posts, I am flattered that you were interested in my day-to-day reflections and I will miss sharing them with you all!

A lovely gift from the bosses at Spoon

An incredible arugula and poached egg salad at the Coffee Shop in Union Square

Katy Perry's Prismatic Tour at the Barclay Center with Dana!

Interns Take on Food Challenges!

The Spoon interns took on two infamous food challenges over the past couple of weeks, stuffing our cheeks with marshmallows and then pounding saltine crackers. Sounds like loads of fun, right? :)

Check us out completing the Chubby Bunny challenge and the Saltine challenge in these incredible videos made by video intern Mira!

News Newbie

These past couple weeks at the Observer have been filled primarily with lede searching and until now, I did not grasp the challenges in finding and pitching buzzy, fresh and informative news articles.  Since Lale, the intern supervisor and Managing Editor of the Observer decided to take the NY News section of the Observer in a slightly different direction to include more original pieces and fewer re-blogs, I have been on the search for interesting pitches.  We are encouraged to either take an existing story and find a new angle or spin on it to generate something entirely different or uncover something newsworthy that has not been covered at all and complete the necessary research and reporting to cover it.  This has been a huge challenge for me (especially because I never expected to be writing for publication this summer, nonetheless pitching and writing news stories). But, at the same time, it has been an invaluable experience, as I am doing exactly what I would be doing as a news reporter working at the Observer and am able to get direct feedback on the quality of my pitches and writing from one of the editors. Of course the learning curve means that several of my pitches simply do not work in that they do not cover relevant info for the Observer audience and my writing has also had to be tweaked significantly to adopt a catchy, news-y tone also suited to the Observer audience of educated, upper-middle class New Yorkers.

Another inherent challenge is seeking interviews, quotes and pictures from large organizations included in pieces that I am covering. Usually it takes a little while for a response from a PR or Marketing person at the company in order to set up a time to speak with a representative or manager of the said company or to receive photos suited for the press.  This has allowed me to really up my communication skills in emailing and speaking directly on the phone with prominent people in their fields. Unfortunately, this also slows down the publication process, though, as this info is often necessary to complete a piece.  Again, more insight into the journalism field and what it takes to bring an article from a pitch/idea through the draft process and to publication.

Currently, I am wrapping up a trend piece compiling museum, zoo and park sleepovers in NYC this summer.  This has involved contacting several organizations that host such overnight activities to secure photos and interview managers on the motives behind starting these programs.

Reunited!

So lovely to spend time with Shelby this summer

Central Park with my dad, who visited last Sunday

Instagram Craze

Anyone who knows me in the slightest knows that I am a huge fan of Instagram (and have to restrain myself from multiple posts each day).  So, of course, when the opportunity arose to write a piece on hidden Instagram features for Spoon (to go along with the latest "foodstagramming" obsession), I hopped right on it.

Check this article out if you want to know more about everyone's favorite photo-editing and sharing app!

Wrapping up but not winding down...

As I near the end of my time in this (unbelievable and fabulous) city, I would say that while a couple of projects are being wrapped up, nothing is quite winding down - which I appreciate, since it's the constant busy-ness of everything that makes this place and these internships exciting. Last week, the study abroad section of the Spoon website finally began to come to life, after weeks of surveying, collecting survey results and generating interactive google maps. While it is still far from complete, we now have a template for what it will actually look like on the website and have unified all of our info for various countries to match it.

Spoon U's upcoming Brainfood conference is also coming together, with several great speakers lined up, including the Creative Director of Fortune Magazine, Brandon Kavulla, the founder of Baked by Melissa cupcakes, Melissa herself and the Associate Food Editor at BuzzFeed, Rachel Sanders just to name a few. There will also be an incredible variety of free food samples including Sweetgreen salads, 16 Handles fro-yo and doughnuts from Doughnut Plant.  I still can't get over the fact that with just a concerted effort amongst Sarah and Mackenzie, Nathaniel (Spoon's new business director) and the interns, we all managed to gather such an eclectic group of speakers and food samples for the conference guests. I'm so sad that I won't be able to attend the conference next weekend (since I leave on Thursday) to see the fruit of our labor.

(More) Intern Perks

Went to taste gelato for an upcoming Spoon article and left with all of these free pints thanks to Ciao Bella!

Contribute to the Spoon Cookbook Proposal!

If you've ever cooked, wanted to cook or plan to cook, please fill out this survey!  We (at Spoon) are using the information to create the ultimate college cookbook, an innovative compilation of Spoon recipes to make cooking easy, fun, healthy (sometimes...) and affordable.

24/7

To say I am busy this summer would be an understatement, although, that said, I can't say I would trade this constantly-doing-something lifestyle for anything.  Between editing, writing articles, developing a cookbook proposal, helping to flesh out a new part of the website and promoting an upcoming conference for Spoon and researching ideas, pitching and writing articles for the Observer, it seems like there is always something to work on or an email that needs a response.  I love it.  On top of all that, I have been taking a class on social media at NYU for which I am developing a marketing proposal for an imagined brand. I have also been working on training modules required to be a Washington University Student Associate starting in the fall, as well as drafting internship reports in order to get school credit for my time at the Observer. In any free time left, I have been squeezing in dance classes and spending time with friends who have come to the city, both from my high school and college. Fortunately, being busy makes life so much more exciting, but at the same time, it has (literally) made this summer fly by...I'm only in NYC for about two more weeks!

Spoon: Meet the Interns!

Check out our intro video and bios here on the Spoon website. :)

Jersey Shore

A much-needed escape from NYC for an incredible 4th of July weekend at the beach.

Observer Observations

In just the few weeks that I have been interning at the NY Observer, it's unreal how much change has happened.  First, SCENE was pulled from publication and I was lucky enough to become an intern for the Style section of the Observer.  I began to pitch ideas and started on a longer article that would require me to reach out to retailers and marketing professionals in the retail industry for quotes and information.  While in the process of doing so, Elaina, my supervisor, went abroad and the Managing Editor for the Observer, Lale Arikoglu, became the new supervisor for all of the interns.  Since most of the interns write for the New York news section, she started to oversee that.  I began to write short re-blogs/reposts of news clips each day, which was a nice change as it has allowed me to get more writing experience, as well as bylines on the website.  However, Lale is now planning on shifting the format of the New York section to include fewer re-blogs and more report-style pieces.  In other words, rather than flooding the site each day with information that every other news service is posting, she is encouraging us, as interns, to take on more meaningful projects by pitching stories that require us to go out and experience something firsthand or interview people to get our own information and quotes.  This is quite an ambitious change as far as I'm concerned, only because I started out the summer completing more administrative and organizational tasks, as well as light copyediting and now plan to report and write my own stories.  (What a fast and unexpected progression)  Regardless, I feel so lucky to actually be able to to immerse myself in the journalism world in the most exciting (and newsworthy) city in the country.

Going Abroad?

Recently, the Spoon interns have been working on creating a new section of the Spoon website dedicated to study/travel abroad.  It will serve as an all-encompassing guide (consisting of a map and place descriptions) to where to eat, drink and party in some of the more popular study abroad destinations.  We sent out this survey to collect as much information as possible from students who have been abroad in order to provide viewers of the site with the most reliable and relevant recommendations. Although, since we are very much still in the process of compiling information, if you have been abroad (whether you are a student or not), it would be great if you could fill it out. :)

Specifically, I am working on the four primary study abroad cities in Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Granada and Sevilla.  I made sure to choose Spain as my first country to work on for the website, as I plan to study there during my Junior year; now I can be sure I'll know all the hottest restaurants to hit up when I'm there from so many great student recommendations!