Some places are just too good to be worth giving a sardonic introduction to. Coopertown Diner is one of those places. It’s a cozy resteraunt designed with a 50s theme to give a nostalgic feeling to people who almost certainly shouldn’t be allowed near any of the food they serve lest it pop their aged veins. It just has an all-around friendly fell, even if the tables are a bit sticky. And the food. Oh god, the food.
This is an oreo milkshake. It is a testament to the hubris of man that I was even created. It’s a bit hard to drink at first because of the clumps of crushed oreos but the more you drink the easier it gets. It tastes like happiness. I will die from drinking too many of these and I won’t regret a single one.
Normally I eat plain burgers but the guy recommended the rodeo burger with mushrooms and cheese. They both helped the burger have a unique but great taste. The fries were also really good, crunchy outside and squishy inside. The onion rings were lukewarm and chewy but I didn’t even order them so who cares. Overall, the Coopertown Diner is just a fantastic restaurant. Eat there.
Verdict: 9.5/10 triple-stuffed oreos
(They forgot to upload the coupon to the website so watch this space)
By: Alexander Rose
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
What is a restaurant, really? Is it a place that serves any sort of food to customers? Must it necessarily have a place where you can sit down and eat your meal? Could an ordinary store be considered a restaurant? I have absolutely no idea, but here’s a review of a store anyway.
Westside Market is both a market and located on the west side, surprising absolutely nobody. They have pretty much everything you’d expect from a market, ranging for avocados to zebra meat (I don’t think they actually have that last one but I couldn’t think of a food that starts with Z). [My editor has subsequently described to me the concept of a food called “Zucchini”, though I’m skeptical of it’s existence.] If there’s something you’re looking for, they probably have it. They also make their own food, which is what I reviewed. Be aware that there’s no seating so you’ll have to eat somewhere else.
I ordered the breaded chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. The beans were quite good. They were a bit sweeter than green beans usually tend to be, but in a good way that makes them go well with the chicken. The chicken itself is also sweeter than normal, though again in a positive way. The breading is also quite tasty and sticks well to the chicken. The potatoes were someone inconsistent in temperature, with parts being hot and parts being cold, but otherwise they also pair very well with the chicken.
They also make their own desserts, so I got the chocolate mousse. It’s pretty high quality, with different flavors of chocolate that contrast each other in interesting ways. It was denser than I thought it would be, but that’s actually a positive since it means there’s realtively more mousse in there.
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
Since I was a kid, I knew that I was expected by my family and those around me to pursue the path of higher education. Apart from entertaining the occasional daydream or mental movie reel of living the life of an up-and-coming YouTube talent discovery, I’d never really considered doing anything that veered away from the straight path to college and beyond.
As is the case for many others, I had spent some 16 years busting my butt in school, and during those 16 years, my academic performance shaped much of my identity, and in turn, I had shaped a shocking amount of my identity around excelling in my studies. Yet, despite being in the school scene for nearly ¾ of my life, it wasn’t until that fateful day on Wednesday, May 19, 2021, that I realized a suffocating truth: I had no idea of who I was outside of being a student. Correction: I *still* have no idea who I am outside of being a student.
I realized that I feel overwhelmed by the state of being a student and feel pitifully underwhelmed by simply being me.
Last week on Wednesday, May 19, 2021, thousands of NYU undergraduate and graduate-level degrees and certificates were officially conferred by the University President Andrew Hamilton and the dozen or so deans and faculty of all the students’ respective schools. Last Wednesday, I graduated…virtually. On any other year, you would find the thousands of graduates sit around the field of Yankee Stadium, and honestly, as I stared into my laptop screen with my black cap on, gold tassel dangling in the corner of my eye, and cat napping on the couch next to me, that’s all I could envision.
Yankee Stadium or my mom’s living room: that is the question.
Yet, despite the virtual nature of the ceremony, I acknowledge that my graduation was a time of joy for my family and friends. My mom flooded everyone’s Facebook feed with cap-and-gown pictures from our private photoshoot in our kitchen, and I responded to all of them with a single post because, let’s be honest, no one has time to respond to every single “Congratulations”. I signed off the post with the oh-so-colorful ending, “Onto the next chapter”, along with a hashtag with the name of my graduate school, #UniversityofGroningen.
Yes, that’s right. Here I am, eternally tearful about not knowing what is meaningful to me outside of my academics and still, I decided to pursue graduate school of my own accord. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very grateful for this opportunity, and I am looking forward to deepening my understanding of my field of study, but what I’m having some real trouble with are the undercurrents of emotion that don’t come across in that Facebook post or my LinkedIn updates or even in my conversations with family and friends—the dread of a quarter-life identity crisis and the fear of losing myself in the books and the grades and the resume and the dollar signs.
It wasn’t until Wednesday, May 19, 2021, that I realized that I don’t know what really matters to me or what makes me feel fulfilled. Like, I have literally spent 10 minutes trying to respond to the simple question of “What kind of music do you like?”. I’ve had a half-hour-long internal debate about whether I prefer thin-cut or thick-cut onion rings. It would take me months to figure out my graduation outfit (thank GOODNESS, I could opt for pajamas instead of a dress this year).
Here’s to hoping my own Path to Self-Discoveryis as sublime as this piece by SH Visuals.
As minuscule and as ridiculous as these questions might seem, upon over a year and a half of quarantine contemplation and introspection, I’ve come to realize that the reason why I have such a hard time with answering these queries and making decisions is that they are inherently based on your identity and personality. And I’ve come to realize that I’m not nearly as in tune with myself as I thought that I was.
Last week, before I graduated, a supervisor of mine proposed a challenge for me. After waiting patiently for my super obscure answer to her clear-cut “What kind of music do you like?” question, she encouraged me to take this summer to think about my “deeper whys”.
Why do I want to go to grad school?
Why do I like my area of study?
Why do I do anything that I do?
At this moment in time, it would take me weeks or an all-nighter to answer these interview questions interrogations. But I am hoping to take these few months before the next chapter to really figure some myself out. I know that there is more to me than being a student, employee, volunteer, and member of all of the organizations that I’m a part of. There’s more. I know it.
Now, it’s time to figure out what that is.
I’ve never been much of a spa or salon kind of person, but over the last year and a half, I realized just how good it feels to indulge in some extra self-care every now and then. So, go out there and treat yourself at Unimited~
by Christianne Evasco
Christianne is a recent graduate of New York Univerity, with a major in Psychology and minors in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies (CAMS) and Creative Writing. Starting September 2021, she will be continuing her education at the University of Groningen in Groningen, Netherlands. Christianne’s endeavors are fueled by her passion to use her voice to help others harness the power of their own voices through therapeutically-creative means and to connect people through language and cultural exchange. In her free time, you can find her catnapping with her cats.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
Here we are, May 19th. Exactly 7 days after May 4th, just like I promised in the last entry of the Covid Cooking Club. To celebrate fact that Covid is now 100% not a threat and nobody should ever worry about it even a little bit, I will be commencing the Rapid Revival Restaurant Reviews, to drum up some support for those poor small business owners who were already going to get destroyed by corporate competition but we’re pretending it’s the pandemic’s fault now. My first target will be the seafood restaurant Bait and Hook, chosen for no other reason than that it was close to me and I’m very lazy.
The layout of the restaurant is very nice, somewhat nautically themed but not nautically themed enough to make people seasick. which apparently happens sometimes. The lights are red, which is pretty weird because it didn’t seem like that kind of establishment. All the waiters are very nice, even when I got pissed at them for not letting me in when I turned up an hour early without any sort of identification. The only real problem is the noise: the music is loud, the people are loud, and the acoustics make it all louder, which means you’ll probably have to shout your order if you want the waiter to actually listen to you.
The house lager is good, and I say that as someone who doesn’t even like beer. As far as I’m concerned most alcohol that isn’t hard cider tastes like varying flavors of fizzy urine, but fortunately this one bucked that trend. It has a mild taste that could be compared to wood if wood tasted good. It also completely obliterated my nostrils after the gas came back up and made me feel like I had been tear gassed, but in a fun and relaxed way.
The Kung Pao Calamari is very tasty. It has both tentacle bits and entire tiny octopi for variety. They’re decently crispy and taste great even without sauce thanks to the seasoning. I tried some of the Kung Pao sauce and it tasted like someone had Kung Powed my tongue, but I guess some people like that sort of thing.
Their most popular food was the lobster roll, which I didn’t order because I don’t like lobster rolls. I had the fish and chips instead. The fish itself was great: white cod with a taste distinct from other fried fish without being too overpowering. The skin was both crunchy and stayed on the meat, and it’s rare to find a fried fish that does both of those. The fries were… fine. Not crispy enough to be french fries or thick enough to be steak fries. I saw someone else eating mashed potatoes and those looked way better.
So the next day I went back and ordered the mashed potatoes. They were, in fact, way better. A good blend between chunky and creamy with a hint of garlic. I also learned it was much less loud outside.
Dessert was gelato, which wasn’t part of the review but they gave me some anyway because they’re nice people. It was good, because it was ice cream. I’m easily please by ice cream.
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
During my semester abroad in Madrid my sophomore spring, I tasked myself with finding an internship for the upcoming summer. My internship search took on a sense of urgency because I knew I couldn’t spend the summer in New York City without income. While I loved visiting my family and my hometown, I felt like I belonged in the city, and I yearned to be there. Sending cover letters into the void was discouraging when each unanswered application felt like a step away from the life I was building in the city. I couldn’t stop comparing myself to people in my classes, who had internships at Citibank and Morgan Stanley lined up before we even arrived in Madrid.
What finally got me through was, for the second time, a referral from a friend, who gave my resume to her boss with a glowing recommendation. The company was Richard Attias & Associates, an international political and communications consulting firm specializing in high-end global events.
Walking through Midtown Manhattan on my lunch break
After two Skype interviews, I was offered the position of Research Intern for the Community Team. Our team focused on event speakers and guests. The events I worked on included the Future Investment Initiative, aka “Davos in the Desert,” a financial and economic conference in Saudi Arabia; the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York, the largest gathering of Heads of State outside the United Nations; as well as the Global Cybersecurity Forum, Women in Corporate Leadership, and the Olympism in Action Forum.
On paper, the job sounded glamorous. In reality, it was monotonous. I spent all day, every day trying to find business leaders and government officials’ contact information on the internet so that we could invite them to our events. I would put this information in Excel spreadsheets or Salesforce then send event invitations through Salesforce.
I worked a full 40-hour workweek that summer. For the first time, I felt independent, like a person living in the world rather than a child who relied on her parents for every rent payment and medical bill. Even though I was scraping by each month after paying rent, I still appreciated the independence immensely.
I now knew what it was like to be a young working woman in New York City, taking the subway each morning in sneakers, changing shoes when I got to work, and going to happy hour at 6 pm. I spent the weekday afternoons longing for the weekend. I even found myself looking forward to the start of the fall semester, when my days would have more variety and my mind would be put to use at a level closer to its potential.
A coworker’s Instagram story on a hot summer day
At the same time, this more fully-realized, self-reliant person that I felt myself becoming was scary, maybe because I thought that this monotony was all that was waiting at the other end of the tunnel that was college—a job where I would sit all day and look at spreadsheets. What seemed even scarier was that I felt a comfort in the monotony. After the stress of finding this job, I didn’t want to do another internship search. At Richard Attias, I was paid well, my coworkers were nice (we even had a party with Spanish wine for my birthday), and the environment wasn’t stressful. So I stayed for the entirety of my junior year.
I think this feeling, this unease I felt in a traditional corporate environment, is part of what planted in my mind the idea of going abroad again. During my junior year, when I wasn’t working, I began leaning into my creative interests. I enrolled in a photography class. I was still studying for the LSAT—I wasn’t ready to take the full leap into a more artistic and nomadic life. However, I was ready to take small steps toward living a life full of creativity and helping others.
Internship Search Tip:
Don’t be afraid to follow up after an interview. When I hadn’t heard back for two weeks after my first interview at Richard Attias & Associates, I sent an email to the supervisor reiterating my interest in the position and why I would be a good fit for the role. Less than a day later, I was invited for a second interview.
Students can save on smoothies, sandwiches and more at Greenwich Marketplace with this coupon
By Marisa Bianco
Marisa graduated from NYU in May 2020, summa cum laude, with degrees in International Relations and Spanish. She grew up in Nebraska, but she is currently living in Córdoba, Spain, where she works as an English teacher. You can find her eating tapas in the Spanish sun while likely stressing about finding her life’s purpose.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
Dessert is the least important and therefore best part of any meal. A good dessert will make up for a meal full of bland “healthy” garbage, while a bad dessert won’t really affect anything because you can just choose to not eat it. Unfortunately, I have literally no dessert-related advice to give. I was told to outline my series of blog posts before writing them, and I chose dessert as the last topic because I think I’m much funnier than I actually am. The fact that I did not actually have anything to say on the subject escaped my mind until the last moment. I figured I could buy myself some time to experiment by creating a low-effort fake chapter for last week, but after doing that I forgot about it until right now. The only dessert I know how to make with any degree of competence is cake, and I can’t actually do that because I only have an oven. Also it tells you how to make it on the box. Honestly there’s no reason to even make dessert when you live right next to a Trader Joe’s. They have these great ripoff Tim-Tams with a complicated name that I can’t actually remember because they stopped selling them. That’s a good thing because I would absolutely have given myself diabetes if I had unlimited access to them. Honestly I’ll probably end up doing that anyway, but at least it’ll be name-brand.
Looking back on it, this was a pretty stupid idea for an article series. For one thing, I’m pretty sure I’ve only genuinely contributed two recipes anyone can’t find immediately online, and one of them was literally just “put some bread in a bun.” And for people to reach those recipes they would have to put up with my exaggerated obnoxious authorial personality, which is a feat few can manage. Actually, this entire column is counterproductive to the very idea of this website since you can’t even use the coupons for home cooking. Fortunately, Andrew Cuomo agrees with me and has decided to unilaterally end the lockdown starting Wednesday, which he apparently has the power to do or something? Anyway seeing at how masterfully he managed the nursing home situation I can guarantee that we’ll all be fine, which is why I’m switching over to restaurant reviews next week. Because let’s be honest, you don’t really want to cook, do you? (“You” here refers to a genericized reader and not you as a person. Don’t feel insulted. I love you.) Cooking is messy and takes time and you usually fail. Most people who cook that aren’t professional chefs only do it because they can’t afford to eat out. The rest do it because being unable to provide for yourself is one those embarrassing social qualities that causes reasonable people to look down on you, like not washing your hands or voting Republican. In my case I do it because it’s easier than resolving my crippling sense of inferiority towards my family by actually talking to them. I’d be shocked if even a single person used any of the advice I’ve given, and I’d be even more shocked if it actually helped them in any way. If you actually enjoyed reading these, I’d like to apologzie for tricking you into wasting your time.
You should still totally read my restaurant reviews though.
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
I have changed my mind about eating out, it’s now perfectly okay as long as you’ve been vaccinated. I have definitely not received a large sum of money in exchange for retracting my previous view. This is totally unrelated on restaurant reviews I may be contracted to do in the future.
In all seriousness if you live in Manhattan check out Veselka ( 144 2nd Ave ) and Dim Sum Palace ( 144 2nd Ave ). Paul’s Da Burger Joint is good too if you don’t mind arterial blockage ( 131 2nd Ave ). If you ask why all the restaurants I recommend are all on the same avenue I will not hesistate to pursue legal action against you.
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
If you haven’t heard of the Marketoonist…Well, I dropped the link here for ya.
Disclaimer: This is lowkey, a venting-out post, and I’m a total hypocrite, and I really need to take my own advice, but hear me out.
Zoom burnout is a thing.
I repeat: teachers, parents, students—ZOOM BURNOUT IS REAL.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always had a preference for brainstorming, taking notes, writing essays, and putting any and all of my thoughts down to paper (there’s nothing like the feeling of a writing utensil callusing your finger joints with little nubs).
It really wasn’t until I graduated high school that I started using screens as much as I do now. In fact, when I first entered university, I was shocked; no, gob-smacked (cool word) at the number of other students who used their laptops to take notes. Since then, I’ve replaced the sensory satisfaction of a pen and paper with the sweet clack of a keyboard. And now, I feel an “unproductiveness” and a sort of emptiness without my technology.
As a college student, I spent a good chunk of my time hunkered down scouring the internet for information, typing away my papers, and lounging in bed while blankly gazing into the glare of blue light of Hulu when I probably should have been either studying or sleeping (speaking of which, guys, you gotta sleep). But the amount I spent scowling at black docs and scrolling through streaming services is overshadowedeclipsed DECIMATED by the time I spend in front of screens ever since the pandemic started.
I like to consider myself an adaptive person. At least, I try to be as flexible as possible (though I was a lot more fit before the pandemic). Still, this whole “everything-online” and “virtual living” thing has me worn out, and I know I’m not alone in this sentiment.
I’ve spoken to friends, classmates, coworkers, professors, and other professionals, and while I—or we—can’t speak for everyone, to my knowledge, the general consensus is that people are getting really tired of hopping on a Zoom call X many times a day.
School, work, socialization—everything is online. And while it’s important to acknowledge what a privilege is to even have access to these resources that allow us to engage in spaces, realize opportunities, and connect with others around the world in real time, it’s also important to recognize the not-so-positive impacts that technology has had on people during this time. Zoom burnout (and really, just burnout in general) is a real thing and can not only affect performance but also our overall well-being.
Shoutout to @kuya__steven reinterpreting (and Thyswyl Delyfe for promoting) a classic meme.
None of us could have anticipated the start of a pandemic at the dawn of a new decade (well, that is, apart from…). But now that we’re over a year into this global quagmire, it’s important to do what we can to ameliorate the situation, not simply with tech-driven solutions, but also understanding others as well as the self.
Teachers: I get the whole “keep your cameras on during class” thing—trust me, I understand what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera, hosting a meeting or class and seeing grey boxes with names floating in limbo in place of faces. It can feel isolating, awkward, and, quite frankly, annoying when it seems like nobody wants to be there and chances are they don’t. Now, it’s not that they don’t want to be in class necessarily, but most people don’t find it particularly pleasant to have the morning/midday/midnight face and bedroom/kitchen/living room (/bathroom?) out on display for everyone to see. Many people would rather be in class in person.
Parents: I can understand why you might get frustrated with your kids once in a while when/if they seem like they’re not putting effort into their classes, chores, or other goings-on. My mom gets pretty ticked with me too when I “forget” to do the laundry on Fridays, and I get it. I mean, c’mon, you go to work how many times a week, work how many hours, and juggle how many other responsibilities that come with being a parent? I truly do understand, and I’m sorry that your kids seem to have seriously regressed into actual kids, but—and this is not an excuse but a plea from one of these aforementioned kiddos—there is a lot going on. And yes, you’re right, right now, most of us don’t get up every morning to commute, or go to work (in person), or pay the bills, but have you ever tried your hand at feigning a smile (and/or attention) while on camera (which, by the way, is probably recording your every move and every word) multiple times a day on multiple days in a week? Dude, it’s tough.
And students: I only have two words for you—CHILL. OUT. It is a rough time for a lot of us right now, and just because this is a global pandemic with people around the world pushing through it and many individuals making do, doesn’t mean that your experience is not valid. I can promise you that no one is having an especially easy time right now (well, I mean, unless you have some green and the nerve to fly over to some island resort during this truly tragic period, no shade intended…okay, yes, shade intended).
All of that said, I have four more words for everyone, from teachers to parents to students to whoever else—give yourself a break.
Actually, I have two more words for you all (welp, I guess I’m a hypocrite and a liar)—be gentle. Be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with others.
If you take nothing from this read (except for my shade and HILARIOUS sarcasm), or in case you’re in dire need of a TDLR, here are four key takeaways:
Zoom burnout—and burnout in general—is real.
We’re in the middle of a global pandemic.
Stay home and stay safe.
Give yourself a break.
Be gentle with yourself, and be gentle with others.
You can’t look at this and not be tempted. Oh, you’re not? Well, then you’re not human. But for those of us who are and need a little break: treat yo’self with some scrumptious Crumb cookies.
by Christianne Evasco
Christianne is a senior at New York Univerity, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies (CAMS) and Creative Writing. Christianne’s endeavors are fueled by her passion to use her voice to help others harness the power of their own voices through therapeutically-creative means and to connect people through language and cultural exchange. In her free time, you can find her catnapping with her cats.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
A picture of soup. Actually it’s mostly bread, but I don’t know how to make bread.
Soup is great. Normally I’d talk about how bad I feel about my own soup and all of soup’s various flaws, but I’m not going to do that. I love soup. More accurately, I love soup as a concept. It’s like food, except you can carry it in a bottle and you can drink it all at once if you’re bored of eating and are an uncultured swine like me. Of course, to say that I actually cook soup is not actually correct. In almost 100% of the cases, I just buy it. See, my dorm is literally located right next to Trader Joe’s, and they have pretty good soup. Tomato soup, chicken soup, clam chowder, onion soup, all the good stuff. Some people say that Trader Joe’s is an unethical business for whatever reason, and they’re probably right because I don’t see how they could profit off selling stuff for such ridiculously low prices without engaging with some sort of criminal activity somewhere along the line. I’ll still happily support them, though, because whatever the hell unethical thing they’re doing directly benefits me since I can go out and buy a month’s worth of soup for ten bucks. It even comes in neat little cartons. When I don’t want to support the mining of African blood diamonds or whatever (which is almost never, I get pretty much all of my food supplies from Trader Joe’s), I generally pick up wonton soup from that one Chinese place. I don’t question what’s in the wontons so it generally works out pretty well for me. The only actual culinary preparation I have to do is microwaving the soup and maybe dipping some breadsticks or garlic crackers in it afterwards. Soup is a fairly messy food for most people what with the complex interaction between the movement of the fluid in the spoon and gravity, but I generally find it to be a lot less messy than any solid food because it just leaves a nice liquid puddle that can be cleaned up instead of ten thousand tiny crumbs that just get fucking everywhere and when you try to clean them they just get everywhere and then in a month when I’ve forgotten about them they either end up attracting swarms of ants or somehow enter me nose at night like they were conjured to life by the sorcerer’s apprentice and causing me to cough up a storm triggering my hypochondriac covid anxiety and also making me continue on this sentence for way longer than any competent editor would allow. If I’m feeling really inventive I’ll just buy broth and drop some leftover turkey chunks from my standwiches in it then heat that up. To be honest I don’t really have any substantive advice on how to prepare soup, I’m just using it as an excuse to rant about whatever I feel like. I guess that isn’t really different than the rest of these columns though.
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
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In October of my sophomore year, I applied for a semester abroad at NYU Madrid. At the same time, I submitted an application for the for-credit internship program there. In November, I had a Skype interview with the director of EUSA, a separate company NYU hires to run many of its abroad internship programs. During this meeting, we discussed the fields of work I was interested in, and she evaluated my level of Spanish fluency.
When I arrived in Madrid, I received an email notifying me that I had an interview in two days with the European Foundation of Society and Education, an education policy think tank. The interview process was a whirlwind. A few days before, I was pickpocketed at a nightclub, and my phone was stolen. To make it to my interview without a cell phone, I had to purchase an alarm clock and memorize the route to the office. Luckily, the foundation was in the city center and not the outskirts of Madrid, but I still had to transfer trains and ask for directions on the street.
My neighborhood in Madrid
I was nervous because the placement information made the office sound like a strict and formal environment. However, I was greeted by a charming old man. He reminded me of a kindly grandpa as he offered me a cup of coffee and complimented me on my success at NYU. His name was Miguel Ángel, the President of the foundation. It wasn’t even a real interview; we just worked out my schedule and got to know each other.
Contrary to my preconceived assumptions, the foundation was casual and friendly. I ended up wearing jeans every day. It was also customary to say “hola” and “adiós” to every person individually when you arrived and left each day. I even remember a coworker apologizing profusely one afternoon because she hadn’t said hello to me when she came in.
The work was a mix of administrative tasks, translating, social media management, and research analysis. I also went to a required weekly class at NYU Madrid for the students in the internship program, which involved various projects including a capstone research paper at the end of the semester. The most challenging part was reading quantitative research papers that the foundation published in Spanish, then writing my analysis (in Spanish) in a blog post. It seems I did okay, though, as Miguel Ángel submitted two of my articles to a Spanish newspaper.
My article on civic education, published in the Spanish newspaper Magisterio.
Every morning, Miguel Ángel would ask me about my classes, exams, and weekend trips. These conversations were almost always interesting, as Spanish people tend to speak about personal topics more openly in the office than we do in the U.S. For example, I mentioned once that I had been baptized as a Catholic, and Miguel Ángel was so excited to tell me all about the importance of that sacrament.
At the end of the semester, the foundation invited me back for a goodbye party with coffee and snacks. They even bought me a Zara bag as a thank-you gift. I was sad to leave. I had genuinely enjoyed my time in the office, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, terrace for drinking coffee, and genial coworkers. However, when people ask if I recommend doing an internship during your semester abroad, the answer isn’t so simple.
Even now, after all of this reflecting, I still don’t know the answer. I am sure it looked impressive on my resume—job experience in a foreign country and in a foreign language. I could now prove my Spanish proficiency to future employers. I wrote about my work at the foundation in numerous cover letters and personal statements. For years, it has served as a unique experience that I can draw upon when promoting myself for a new job or academic program. More so, being a “working professional” in Madrid made me feel like I actually lived there, that I wasn’t just a typical study abroad student.
At the same time, I don’t believe I was fully ready for the transition to life in Spain. I left my closest friends and family in New York to study in a program where I barely knew anyone. Then, I filled my schedule with classes and my for-credit, unpaid internship hours, so I didn’t often have time to connect with other students. For them, their time abroad was an “easy semester” where they slept in, went to clubs on weeknights, and traveled every weekend. Meanwhile, I was shut in my room during the week, trying to finish my homework in the little free time I had after work. I rarely succeeded—I constantly felt that I was behind in my classes. I still got to travel extensively, and I had the most lovely time jet-setting across Europe. But I was so tired, so anxious, and my support system was across the ocean. I wonder what would have happened if I had spent those 16 hours a week (plus transportation time) taking care of myself rather than working in an office without getting paid.
Interning as a student is a learning process. In Madrid, I learned that it is okay to take a step back from work when you need to. Being a student and being a human are jobs too. Despite my struggles, I do not regret my time at the foundation. I challenged myself, and growth always comes from facing challenges.
By Marisa Bianco
Marisa graduated from NYU in May 2020, summa cum laude, with degrees in International Relations and Spanish. She grew up in Nebraska, but she is currently living in Córdoba, Spain, where she works as an English teacher. You can find her eating tapas in the Spanish sun while likely stressing about finding her life’s purpose.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
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