This summer, I am interning in Marketing at a real-estate startup in the heart of Manhattan. When I first learned of my internship offer, I was extremely excited by the opportunity to be immersed in the urban business world for the first time in my life.

Soon after arriving in New York, I discovered that my daily routine was dramatically different than my routine in Claremont. Instead of walking five minutes to class, I walk about half a mile to the subway and then take about a 10 minute subway ride to my office. In addition to my longer commute, the vast number of people in New York is a sharp contrast to quiet, suburban Claremont. And rather than simply heading to the dining hall for meals, I have to think about where and what to eat that will be nutritious and fit my intern budget.

After completing a week and a half of my internship, I am also struck by the strong contrast between the academic and business environments. One of my first assignments at my internship was to create a personality resume including anything I deem important about myself that would not be on a typical resume such as grades, leadership activities, academic accomplishments, or awards. Rather, the personality resume was meant to focus on my personality, strengths, and unique attributes. I found two aspects of this assignment challenging. As I have been evaluated and rated quantitatively through grades and tests scores for the majority of my life, I found it difficult to truly define my unique attributes. In addition, I struggled initially due to the lack of guidelines for the assignment. The manager intentionally provided minimal guidelines so that the structure, style, and content of my personality resume would reflect my personality. After adhering to strict and specific instructions from a syllabus for so many years, it was hard to channel my creativity to create my personality resume.

After a few hours of trial and error, I came to accept the purposeful lack of structure in this assignment, take advantage of the opportunity to truly understand aspects of myself beyond grades and awards, and enjoy not having to follow a syllabus. I was able to explore different infographics to represent myself and different layouts to demonstrate my unique attributes. In my personality resume, I was able to highlight my bi-coastal identity, love of drones, ESFJ personality, strengths, and short and long-term goals.

Now that I have become more used to the striking contrast between New York and Claremont and the business and academic worlds, I can fully appreciate that having the opportunity to experience both environments is helping me to develop a stronger sense of my own personality, and get a better sense of the living and working environment that I will best enjoy once I finish college.