Hi! My name is Laura Kelly and I just finished my sophomore year as a Graphic Design major here at PhilaU. I recently was offered a position interning with the Digital Media sector of NBC Universal in New York City. Throughout the course of the summer I will posting journals and giving updates of my experiences here in the big city!

Last Wednesday was my first day as an intern or NBC Universal. Commuting to the city is a daily adventure on its own! I've gotten used to roaming around Philadelphia, so exploring New York City is a another exciting experience. I catch the train in Trenton and from Penn Station hop on a quick Subway ride to 14th street. My final destination is at Chelsea Market, which is just a block away. I've come to find that the train can be a little unpredictable at times, but always gets me to where I need to be.

It was nice to finally meet my coordinator, Dominique, and the other people in our group whom I've been contacting over the past weeks up until my start date. There are two other interns on my team. Dawei is a Media Studies student at the New School and Sandra is a Literature and Philosophy major at Brandeis University. The three of us, with the rest of our team, will be working on the Travelskoot.com website. By searching and simply plotting your own points, TravelSkoot allows you to create travel guides or itineraries for specific areas of your choice. Dawei will be working with video editing and media areas of the site, Sandra will be concentrating on the marketing and public relations of it, and i will be working on design areas involved with TravelSkoot. After being shown our office and our individual computers, we then left to head over to the famous Rockefeller Center for orientation.

At 30 Rock, we received our temporary badges and attended the orientation session for all NBC Universal interns. It was great to see so many students who were also working with the company. We met a student who was an intern at the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon. Very Cool! I don't think I realized how broad the NBC corporation was before obtaining my position. So many infamous movies, television shows and networks are all part of the NBC family. It's really exciting being part of a company that is connected in all different areas. I hope that other PhilaU students will get the opportunity to work with such a great company that combines the corporate and creative side of an internship. After the orientation was finished, Dawei, Sandra and I went exploring in the city and ate lunch on the library's steps and ended our first day.

The next day we were each assigned our first official projects. For my first specific assignment, I will be working on different ads that will be promoting TravelSkoot. Promoting the site is a crucial part of marketing, and it's great to be able to design areas that will appear on targeted sites that people connect on such as Facebook. I'm looking forward to the assignments and projects I will be taking on throughout the course of this internship. Our whole group welcomed us to their daily lunch time and we got to experience the great food below in Chelsea Market and how the team enjoyed their breaks together. On Friday it was beautiful outside so after work, I met up with a fellow PhilaU student who is also interning in New York and walked around Chelsea and Washington Square. It's a wonderful opportunity to work and still be able to experience all the city has to offer. My first few days at Chelsea Market went great and I'm very excited for the weeks to come.

Until then, best wishes! - Laura

P.S. Check out the site I'll be working on this summer at! www.TravelSkoot.com