Voices from Abroad: Ludovica Pepe
New York, NY (USA), Internship Abroad, FuoriPorta NYC
 Times Square |
"If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere": if you are moving to New York for an internship, you get a real challenge. You are now out of the "comfort-zone" of the university campus, dealing with exams, work groups and assignments. You are in a fast-paced, crowded, sleepless city. You are working there. And it is worth it.
New York is one of the most densely populated and multicultural cities in the world, its housing market is increasing and the cost of living isn't really cheap, but this is the price you have to pay when you live in a city that makes you feel at the center of the world.
When you spend more than a month in this city, you begin to notice all its contradictions, such as extremely rich and extremely poor people, progress and development colliding with things moving in reverse, and Manhattan, with its vertical heights, almost frightens you when you walk through other boroughs, which are stuck to the ground.
I have personally experienced this duality living in the Upper East Side, which makes you feel as if you are in a movie, but then you suddenly pass through Manhattan, and find yourself in farms in the middle of nowhere.
 Ludovica and friend in Washington, DC |
However, the first impression is always the same: from the first moment you find yourself in New York, you immediately feel as if you belong to this city instantly. It has so many different opportunities and aspects, that you can easily find your own dimension.
Personally, I've been lucky enough to experience the presidential elections, Thanksgiving day, and Sandy the hurricane: all of them showed me some peculiarities of real American life. Moreover, no matter what kind of job you are doing there, this city is a school of life in itself.
My working experience was in a fashion agency, and consisted in acting as an intermediary between Italian producers of fabrics and the major American fashion brands. This gave me the valuable chance to face American culture even as concerns the business reality, which is different from ours in many aspects. American people are pragmatic, fast and what they say is what they mean. This makes you learn how to use different approaches according to who you are dealing with.
Words cannot really explain how New York has changed me. It has opened my mind, made me stronger and enriched by all the people I met, all the breathtaking places I saw and let me experience the "American dream" for a while. Oh, I wish I hadn't woken up.