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When I left for my semester in LA, I really had no idea what to expect. Now that I’m back and getting reacclimated to not seeing the sun again, I thought I’d put together a recap of some of the highlights of things I saw/learned over the past four months!
For starters, I have to say that the inspiration behind finally taking the training wheels off of this whole blog thing came from my experiences this semester. At my internship, we were responsible for putting on events for our clients (which included companies like McDonalds, FabFitFun, Essentia Water, Greenleaf, 24 Hour Fitness and a ton more!), and while we had traditional media outlets cover the events, most of our coverage came from smaller blogs. My job most days was to use a computer software called Cision to pull influencers and bloggers in different areas of LA who we could pitch to, and try to get to come to our events. Essentially, these bloggers would get to sample new foods or experience the new opening of a store and in return, we asked them to write a blog post for us! About a month into my internship I realized that hey, pretty much anyone could do this. While it may not bring in enough income to support you full-time, it would be a really cool hobby to have and would bring in some really neat experiences. However at the time I was taking 12 credits, working 30 hours at my internship and trying to squeeze in as many weekend trips around California as possible, so the blogging idea took a bit of a back burner. I knew, though, as soon as I had some free time this was something I wanted to try myself.
I also had the amazing opportunity to travel just about everywhere, all across Cali and beyond! You would not believe just how much there is to see out there. In February, my parents came out to visit and we took a weekend trip to San Diego (word to the wise, do not travel southward on the 5 or PCH on Columbus Day weekend- just don’t even try). A couple of weeks later, I took a trip to Sin City with a couple of my girlfriends to go to the ACM Party for a Cause Music Festival, and a week before I came home I made the fairly extensive trek up north to San Francisco, which was my personal favorite. On the weekends, we would try to hit every beach we could within reasonable driving distance up and down the coast, getting to see Malibu, Laguna, Santa Monica and Huntington. I’ve never seen such strikingly different landscapes and cities all within the same state before, and it was absolutely beautiful. Don’t even get me started on Big Sur, that’s a topic for an entirely separate blog post of its own.
Essentially, while my time in LA was to expand my horizons professionally and give me a taste of the entertainment/communications world, I ended up learning more about what I don’t like and don’t see my future self doing, so instead I took the opportunity to explore as much as I could. People ask me if I ever did any actual work over the four month span and I can promise you I did- I think my sleeping in until noon every day since I’ve gotten back can attest for that- but I made the executive decision to make my trip more like a mini vacation than anything else. My hope for this blog is to scatter little tidbits and tips from all of the places I visited (and visit, I don’t plan to stop here), and share what I learned about the industry and myself. I feel like I’m finally beginning to develop a sense of self about my own personal career goals, and considering I’ve been lost for so long now, if I can provide clarity to anyone else I would love nothing more!