Editorial Internship-Athens Insider
Emily Howard: Student, Traveler and Intern, Oh My!
Here at CYA, you’ll find that students are always going the extra mile. Whether it’s walking through Psyrri in search of the best souvlaki or exploring the corners of the ancient Agora for hours, CYAers rarely stay indoors. So it makes sense that on top of studying abroad, CYA students find opportunities to hone their skills and follow their passions both inside and outside of the classroom. Emily Howard, a junior from Reed College, is one of our students doing an internship in Athenian journalism, and we took a look at what she’s done so far.
Before she even landed in Greece, Emily had started looking up jobs that piqued her interest here in Athens: “I was looking at the CYA website during the summer and I was curious about what kind of extracurriculars people did”. Coincidentally, this small search ended up paying off in a big way, as a couple of emails later, Emily landed an internship with Athens Insider, a travel magazine that reports on all the creative arts and events happening throughout Athens. Being at the Athens Insider office twice a week as an intern, Emily has been one of the voices behind weekly newsletters that are sent out for people to see what’s going on in the creative spheres of Athens. She’s covered stories like the photography of Rock n’ Roll music scenes in Greece, new Netflix shows coming to the Greek screens, grape harvesting on Mount Athos, and so much more. As part of CYA, I actually get these newsletters every week, and I always read them with excitement to see what new exhibition or music festival is going on in my local neighborhood.
When asked about how her internship has shaped her abroad experience, Emily stressed that she’s had nothing but rewarding experiences. From the commute to the office to the places she goes throughout Athens for her next story, Emily says that working for her internship has given her a chance to see Athens through a different lens: “Going to my internship has been a fun experience because it’s a long commute…it’s been cool just to see Vouliagmeni, a suburb of Athens that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise”. After talking to Emily about everything she does for her internship (research for newsletters, formatting content online, and traveling around the city for updates on new stories), I couldn’t help but ask if the time commitment added any unanticipated stress to her life here in Athens. But Emily said that she has actually learned to manage her time better, saying that knowing she’ll be in the office two days a week helps provide her with a set schedule of when she can get her work done. And she’s also been able to connect her internship to her academic endeavors here at CYA: “I’m in a Performance in Athens class, a theater class, and some of the performances and places we’ve gone to I’ve already known about, which is cool”.
One of the most rewarding parts of the internship for Emily is how much she’s learned by simply being in her office space. Working with her editor and mentor Sudha Iliades, Emily stressed that she’s learned a lot about different workplace relations, different styles of writing outside that of the typical academic or liberal arts college sphere, and has also gotten a more in-depth look at modern Athenian life and culture, all things that have positively impacted her abroad experience. “Knowing more about Athens culture and events that are happening has…shaped the way that I’ve been here and been living here…it’s a really cool way to get to know the city”.
To read Emily’s work, click here:
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