Germany Day 5

Day five was bound to be a somber one. We took a day trip to Dachau Concentration Camp, which was the first one. When we arrived, it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary but once we walked inside the gates, I immediately remembered every video I’d ever watched about the Holocaust. I had the opportunity to tour the barracks that prisoners had to stay in and read many survivor stories about their experiences. There were a few beautiful memorials that were erected after the fact that I got to tour. There’s one piece of artwork in front of the museum that really spoke to me. It was a sculpture of the “lost souls” (picture included later). In the back left corner of the concentration camp was the gas chamber and the two crematories along with some grave sites. It was a day that I won’t soon forget and I learned a lot about Dachau during my reading and tour. The tour prompted me to look up books written about the camp and I have a list of books I’d like to check out when I’m back in the states.

After leaving Dachau, we headed to a biergarten that played jazz music called Waldwirtschaft Grosshesslohe. Here I decided to get something simple and had schnitzel and a pretzel. I was incredibly dehydrated today so I swapped my beer for a bottle of water. The jazz musicians were amazing here and created a different atmosphere.

When we got back from our day trip, Matthias and Jay went to the 1860 Munich soccer game while Vanessa, Kerstsin and Tina went over to Marienplatz to shop. I decided to rest my knee, catch up on my blog and call my mother instead of tagging along with either group. This was a great idea and gave me some time for myself, which was much needed.

Around 8pm, Tina texted me to meet her and the girls for dinner.  We met up at the corner near the train station and walked around to find a restaurant. We ended up meeting up with Matthias and Jay to eat again at Osterwaldengarten. I ended up loving the hellas beer there, so I got another and ate Beef Goulash for the second time! The goulash is amazing and I’ll be on the lookout for a recipe when I’m home. Though we got rained on a bit, I had a great time hanging out with Matt, Jay and Tina as we finished our drinks after dinner.

Tonight was an early one so we could pack up our things and prepare for traveling to Wurzburg in the morning at 8am.

Germany Day 4

Day 4 included a trip from Munich to Kloster Andechs, which was a beautiful church owned by the Benedictine abbey of St. Bonifaz that was considered the oldest place of pilgrimage in Bavaria. Today was my first day in a knee brace and I spent the whole day in a world of pain. The trip to get to the church was a very steep incline and it took me an incredible amount of time to get to the top.

Once we finished checking out the church, we headed to the shop to look at souvenirs and then to get some lunch at their biergarten. The food here was incredibly cheap and the beer was strong! I got a .5 L of light beer that Matthias had to help me finish. Here, I had rolled pork and more delicious potato salad (I love potato salad, just like my mom).

After an awesome lunch (and a little bit of a buzz), we went to hike from Kloster Andechs back to the town of Herrsching to catch the train back home. Though my knee was very sore, the hike was awesome. I had so much fun blowing dandelions and hiking the beautiful nature trail. We hiked a few miles and it took us a little over an hour and a half. By the time we started to get into town, the sun was on full blast and we were getting tired and angsty. Once we got back on the train and were heading back, everyone got comfy and relaxed for the 50 minute trip back to our “home” stop – Muenchner Freiheit.

We got back and had about an hour to relax and freshen up for our dinner at the Thailand restaurant around the corner from our hotel. I got something safe – Pad Thailand with shrimp. After our dinner, Mr. Jay got us a white cloud drink which was like a vanilla milkshake with coconut milk and rum in it!

Once we finished up at the Thailand restaurant, we took a short trip to the Volkssternwarte mit Planetarium. Arriving at 8pm and being admitted at 9pm for the tour and telescope viewing gave us some time to relax upon arrival. We spent a little over two hours talking to our tourguide, Borris. He was wild about his job and so passionate about astronomy. I was kind of bummed when he told us he doesn’t believe in astrology, but that’s okay. I still thought he was hilarious.

Tomorrow is going to be somber with a trip to the first ever concentration camp, Dachau.

Germany Day 3

Today’s day trip was from Munich to Salzburg, Austria! I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t get my passport stamped when I got into Austria.

We started the day at the Hellbrunn Palace and Wasserspiele tour. This is a trick fountain palace that Markus Sittikus, prince-archbishop of Salzburg, lived in at the time. He created a ton of trick fountains that got his friends wet when they came to hang out with him. First, we saw a large table with 8-10 seats at it. Volunteers sat at the table and where the archbishop sat, no water was sprayed. Throughout the whole tour, everyone got a little wet and we got to see a ton of cool structures that were created for his guests to check out.

When we finished our tour here, we took a quick walk to visit to the Sound of Music Pavilion and get our pictures taken! The fields that surrounded this area were beautiful and covered with people spending the day enjoying the weather.

After we left this particular park, we headed to lunch at an Indian, Austrian and Italian fusion restaurant in town. I had the chance to eat the German version of macaroni and cheese called kasespatzle. It was delicious and I can’t wait to try it again in Oberammergau.

Next, we took a of the historic fort in Salzburg, Hohensalzburg Fortress. There were a lot of stairs, but many rooms to tour with all kinds of things to look at. The fort was massive and gave us a chance to see a great view of most of Salzburg!

After our fortress exploration (and a splinter in my leg), we walked through the Mirabell Garten and Palace. What a beautiful garden area. I took the chance to take a photo of the Hohensalzburg Fortress from the best angle and also got to take a picture with almost every gnome there (check my facebook for the hilarious photos). I also took photos of the roses for my mom because they made me think of her ❤

Since we missed our cruise in Salzburg, we had time to explore for a biergarten a little earlier. We had to look very carefully for the one we wanted to go to because it looked closed and was well hidden. We headed to a biergarten called Augustiner Bräustübl that was completely covered Chestnut trees which created a cool atmosphere. Since it was a little too early for dinner, we just grabbed some pretzels to snack on for the trainride home and ended up not eating dinner.

On our walk back to our train, which we were trying to catch one an hour earlier than planned (since we missed the cruise, we got done earlier), we got lost. We walked throughout a majority of the city and actually had to take the original train we were going to get on because of it. That being said, I ended up hurting my left knee and was going to have to look for a knee brace the next morning before we headed to Kloster Andechs.

Germany Day 2

For breakfast here, we are offered an assortments of breads, meats and cheeses with strong coffee or tea. Other options are granola cereal, pastries and yogurt. It’s a nice change from waffles or frozen breakfast, but I won’t lie, I miss having eggs for breakfast! I can’t wait to have an egg sandwich for breakfast when I get home.

For my second full day in Germany, we took a day trip to Schloss Nymphenburg (Palace Nymphenburg). The palace itself was beautiful and historic. The surrounding grounds, however, were where we did most of our exploring. There was plenty of wildlife and nature to see and enjoy. We ended up walking about 15 miles today! The grounds were breathtakingly beautiful, covered in trees and waterways and fields were sprinkled throughout. There were many buildings scattered on the grounds that we got to tour and many history lessons to be had about the families that lived here. Sadly enough, I ended up losing one of my rings here 😦

After we explored the palace and grounds for a few hours, we headed to Hirschgarten for lunch and bier! What an adventure it was finding it. We ended up finding it by following a group of young men wearing lederhosen. Here, I tried a pork knuckle and some delicious potato salad for lunch. I’m really enjoying trying new foods and beers!

We enjoyed a couple of hours of down time at the biergarten before heading across town to the Olympia Zentrum (and park). The Olympics were held in Munich, Germany in the summer of 1972. The entire Olympia park was beautiful with many of different things to do and people everywhere enjoying the sunny day. We even saw a group of kids in hamster-like balls running around on the lake. The whole atmosphere was very laid back and it was nice seeing lots of people outside enjoying each other’s company. To see the entire city of Munich, we went up an elevator 190m. Though I was worried about having a panic attack going up so high, it was a breathtaking view. I had an amazing time seeing all of Munich and getting a clear view of the Alps.

After a long day of lots of walking, we got about a block from our apartment/hotel and ate at Osterwaldgarten, which is the Biergarten closest to us. However, we are right by the Englishergarten park which holds 4-5 other options. This park is gorgeous to walk through and has tons of birds and other wildlife running around. It was amazing to see how many people used this park to hang out during the day into the evening. The weather was absolutely beautiful.

Tomorrow I head to Austria!

Germany Day 1

I woke up this morning (ish) in Boynton Beach at my friend Matthias’ house. Today was the beginning of my 25 day trip to Germany! We woke up around 7:30am to get some breakfast and head to the Tri-Rail station to catch the 11:20am train to Miami. After a little over an hour and a half on the train, we arrived and got to go through the joys of baggage check, customs and the fun wait to board our late-late plane. After flying from Miami, Florida to Dusseldorf, Germany (a 9+ hour flight which included a lovely screaming little girl directly behind me), we boarded a second flight from Dusseldorf to Munich. Upon our arrival, we hopped on yet another train to head towards our first home away from home.

Bathrooms are different in Europe! The toilets look different and the showers here don’t have doors (it’s like showering in the open). The weather is absolutely gorgeous; way less humidity than Florida. The buildings and architecture here are so beautiful. Walking around was like being in a different world.

Today I had the chance to walk around Marienplatz and eat at Augustiner Grobgastatte. I also conquered one of my fears and climbed to the top of a church to get a view of the city. I hate heights, but I climbed all the way to the top and back down! I also had the chance to explore the city and utilize the subway/train system.

Also, fun fact: I drank a liter of beer tonight! I had the chance to walk around a beautiful bier garden right near my hotel after a day of exploring 🙂

Choosing a Career

            During the past four years at UCF, I’ve learned a great deal about myself both academically and personally. The definition of success when I first started at UCF was much different than it is now. Though I’ve always excelled in school, college has been a time that I’ve really had to focus in on what was most important. I learned that being successful isn’t just getting straight A’s. Being successful is building connections with your professors and professionals in the workforce and growing those relationships. Being successful is using as many of the resources that are given to you in the best way possible to set yourself up for a good future. I’ve been given so many resources, opportunities and connections during my time at UCF, it was almost impossible to not capitalize on them. To me, success is always putting in 110% and attempting to get the most out of everything you’re offered; taking chances and making changes in your life to reflect where you’re headed.

            The past two years that I’ve been in the College of Business, I’ve been working towards choosing a career. I’ve spent most of my time lost, just kind of shooting for something after graduation. During the Spring, I was considering changing my major because I really didn’t see a future in marketing. I saw everything my degree had to offer, but couldn’t figure out what I would ever want to do with it. I felt like I chose a degree I wasn’t in love with. After participating in an internship with Orlando Weekly as a Marketing Intern over the summer, interviewing at six different companies for marketing internships for the Fall and going through a lot of changes in my personal life, I realized how much I loved doing research. For the second time, I decided to participate in a marketing research project with Dr. Massiah. I spent this semester going through the entire research process again and feeling like I finally found some direction.

            I’ve built a lot of great connections during the past four years. Through my alumni association mentor, Steve, I gained an internship at Orlando Weekly for the summer. I had learned about Events Marketing and wanted to give it a shot. After spending my summer there, I realized that wasn’t for me. Interning at Orlando Weekly showed me something different I could do with my degree, while also leading me to what I was really interested in. This encouraged me to go back to Dr. Massiah, whom I also consider a mentor. I’ve been going to see Dr. Massiah for two years now and she’s seen me grow as a student more than any of my other professors at UCF. This connection has helped me in more ways than I can even explain. Dr. Massiah helped me gain an internship for my graduating semester in a field of marketing I’m very interested in.

            The past four years have been an amazing ride and feel as if I’ve done everything I could to make the most of this experience. If I hadn’t been so self-motivated and been shown so many different things to utilize, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’ve tried to use every resource that was presented to me. I learned about networking and did my best to keep in touch with those connections. I had my resume checked out every semester, sometimes twice in one semester. I went to workshops and saw guest speakers and attended career fairs. The only thing I think I would have done differently would be to connect with more of my professors. If I didn’t think I could connect with them, I didn’t try, but I wish I had. Though I have Dr. Massiah, I also had some other great professors at UCF that I feel I wish I had gotten to know more. I think I did all I could to set myself up for a successful future and I’m excited to be graduating in six months with a game plan. It may have taken four years, more specifically four semesters, but I finally have some direction in my career choice. I’m so thankful for the journey I experienced to get here.

Orlando Weekly Summer ’16 Intern

During my Spring ’16 semester at UCF, I started looking around for internship opportunities for the summer. I had decided against taking any classes over the summer because I wanted to put my all of my focus into an internship and saving up money for my senior year of college. I looked at a variety of websites and UCF outlets in order to have as many options as possible.

I utilized Knight Link and Career Services at UCF, but was most successful through my own professional network. My sophomore year of college, I met my first mentor, Steve, thorough the UCF Alumni Association. Steve and I met once every couple of months for about two years before he introduced me to Zach during the beginning of my senior year. Zach is the Event Director at Orlando Weekly and invited me downtown to have lunch with him at some point during the spring semester. While at our lunch, he told me about the Marketing Internship at Orlando Weekly and encouraged me to send his Marketing Coordinator, Rachel, my resume. A week or so later, I had an interview for a summer internship with Orlando Weekly!

Once I interviewed with Rachel, the marketing and events team had to evaluate around 10 applicants and decide who their top two would be. I was ecstatic when I got the email offer from Rachel a few weeks after our interview. I started on May 15th and went in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week.

Each day I came in required a different set of tasks. Monday’s I came in and sent emails out to online calendars to get our events published on them and did a variety of other online marketing work. In the afternoon, I would start working on things for the newspaper for Lindsey, the Account Manager at Orlando Weekly. We would sort through all of the ads that were going to be in the paper for the week and make sure the ads were correct before the paper went to press. The process took anywhere between 2-3 hours depending on how quickly the editorial staff upstairs got their parts of the paper done. On Wednesday’s, I came in and began working on affidavits, which I cut from the paper and mailed out to those companies that purchased classified ads for the week. After this was done, I would come back and help make marketing summary presentations for each of the events we ran. For example, my first was on the Chili Cook-Off. I sorted through all of the marketing material and photos taken at the event to make a power-point presentation of our entire marketing efforts from start to finish. On Friday’s, I usually finished up any work left over from Wednesday and helped prepare for events for the weekend, while also updating our excel documents.

Throughout my entire internship, I had the opportunity to see the many sides of the events field from start to finish. I learned a lot about planning and mapping for events, marketing plans, social media marketing strategies, and even some of the tasks and efforts that go into making the paper happen each week. The Orlando Weekly Marketing Internship gave me a great view of the way that marketing and events work hand in hand. I enjoyed every part of my internship and I still keep in contact with the team.

I suggest to any student, especially those who aren’t sure what to do with their degree upon graduation, to take an internship. Even if it isn’t exactly what you think you want to do when you graduate, try something. I love trying new things and participating wholeheartedly in this internship gave me a great learning experience and helped introduce me to some amazing people in Orlando. I learned so much about Orlando as a whole and our culture; I couldn’t have gained any of that knowledge anywhere else. I don’t think I want to go into the events field, but I still had an amazing time interning with Orlando Weekly and feel as though I got as much as I could out of my time there.

First Week Spring ’16

It’s finally Saturday! I conquered my first week of Spring semester for 2016 and boy was it a challenge. I had things being put on my plate left and right and even had to swap one of my communication classes for my minor. The class swap was probably the most stressful because of the uncertainty of being able to get placed into a new class. Everything was full up until an hour before my new class began.

On a high note, I’m starting off my internship at Knights of the Round Table (KoRT) strong because I worked very far ahead towards the end of my Fall semester on our graphics. This makes my workload smaller for some things graphics related and gives me a chance to post new things for KoRT. This semester, I will be focusing on celebrating our wonderful Registered Student Organizations! Once a week, a new Org. will be featured in The Hub downstairs in the Student Union.

Onto more important matters, I’m so excited for each and every one of my classes this semester {except accounting, but I don’t get a choice on that one}. I’m currently enrolled in Professional Selling with Dr. William Steiger, Organizational Communication with Dr. Kim Smith, Group Dynamics with Dr. Rufus Barfield, Accounting for Decision Makers with Dr. Ray Strum, and Business Interviewing Techniques with Lonny Butcher. What I’m most excited about this semester is the fact that I’m technically in 2 Marketing (Business) courses and 2 Communication courses. I LOVE my minor {Human Communication} and I’m ecstatic to be taking my first COM elective, Group Dynamics. I really think this course will help me professionally in the business world.

Finally, I’m very happy at my two jobs, American Eagle (AE) and Bath & Body Works (BBW). I love that BBW lets me do their floorsets while I am trained in almost everything at AE. I love helping people feel beautiful in what they wear at AE and am so excited about my responsibilities there regarding Shipment/Stock Room.

I’m really excited for this new year {2016} because I know that a lot of amazing things are bound to happen this year!

A Taste of Marketing Research

During this past Fall semester, I participated in undergraduate research with one of my favorite professors at UCF, Dr. Massiah. I had the pleasure of working with her during the entire research process from start to finish while creating some great plans for future events in between.

When I started to inquire about research my sophomore year, Dr. Massiah advised me to talk to some of my professors about potentially doing undergraduate research my junior year. She told me that it helps to give students a leg up and an experience that they can’t get anywhere else. Since that conversation, I went to see Dr. Massiah a few times during the Spring and Summer semesters, trying to score a research project with her. Over the summer, I was chosen as one of three students that would have the opportunity to work under her advising.

When we started the Fall semester, three out of five courses I was taking related to the topic of research: Marketing Research, Consumer Behavior, and Communication Research Methods. In my communication research class, I learned the entire process of research start to finish while I was doing my research project with Dr. Massiah. I had the chance to put into action what I was learning immediately. This helped me retain and enjoy the experience even more.

We began with the Literature Review. Dr. Massiah gave me a preliminary topic to look up and told me to find articles relating to it because our idea was too broad. We wanted to specify what we were studying. During my studies to see what had been done before me, I discovered an interesting article with a promising direction. I went in to my next meeting prepared to start working on our new-found research question and moving on to the next step in the process, creating a survey. When I had my meeting, Dr. Massiah told me I was going to work on my own research project with her because I had shown a deep thought process and found a great article with a specific direction.

After that, a survey was created and distributed. I had a chance to look at the survey, add a few questions for clarification and revise it. A focus group was also performed but I wasn’t invited to come listen because I may have tainted the data as I am a current UCF College of Business Marketing student.

Once we finished the focus group and got our data back from the survey,  I had a chance to code the data. This gave me a chance to really dive into the notes we had received from our respondents and see what the thoughts were on the Marketing program as a whole. Coding the data helped me come up with a couple of taglines for the Marketing department.

Finally, after coding the qualitative data, I was given the quantitative data to interpret. This part of the project was basically separated and analyzed for me because of the computer system we used. Dr. Massiah and I talked about the results and what we could do with the information.

I really enjoyed doing undergraduate research, especially with Dr. Massiah. It gave me the opportunity to discover a different part of marketing that I wouldn’t have had the chance to see if I hadn’t gone out of my way to pursue it. I am ecstatic to announce that I will be continuing research during my senior year with Dr. Massiah.

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought. – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Fall ’15 Review

Since I finally came to the end of the first half of my junior year of college, I realized I should look back and review what I’ve learned and experienced.

When I first began this past semester,  I was very excited because I was going to be doing a variety of different activities than I had previously done during my first two years of college. This semester, I planned on keeping extra busy. Ever since I arrived at UCF for my first Fall semester in 2013, I participated in Marching Knights. This year, I decided against it and picked up an internship in the Office of Student Involvement in the agency Knights of the Round Table (KoRT), where I was the Marketing Coordinator. I had the opportunity to reinvent the image of KoRT through social media platforms and was to market our events so that more students and organizations were aware of them. Though my job sounds small, I came up with new and innovative ways to present KoRT in a positive light on social media. I love my internship, especially because KoRT’s job at UCF is to help get students involved while making sure the 600+ organizations we manage are up to date and don’t have any questions or concerns.

While going to my internship three times a week and working on it at home as well, I was also the Treasurer for my service sorority, Tau Beta Sigma. We provide exceptional service to collegiate bands. During my time as Treasurer, we managed to run two quite successful fundraisers and are currently in the process of changing banks. I’ve learned a lot about Excel and banks during the past 6-8 months. I’m thankful that my sisters trust me with such an important job. I also had the amazing opportunity to take a little sister in the organization and two little brothers in our joint organization. It was a pleasure helping my three little’s through their processes and watching them grow and develop.

As I previously stated, I wanted to keep extra busy this semester. So, since I’ve already told you about two pretty important activities I participated in, but I also had the chance to work on some Undergraduate Research with Dr. Massiah, one of the best marketing professors. My research assignment only took this one semester because it was more of a trial. I went through the literary review process, where I looked for articles on Student Engagement at the College Level and had the chance to build a research question/topic and survey alongside Dr. Massiah as well. I got to see the survey results (quantitative and qualitative) and try to make sense of what the responses meant. I coded our qualitative data to find a new tagline for the Marketing major at UCF. A focus group was conducted during our research process, but since I’m still a student and an excited one at that, I wasn’t allowed to observe. I really enjoyed the research process and will be continuing this research project further in depth next Fall. My hope is to be a co-author with Dr. Massiah in a business journal by the time I graduate in Spring ’17.

I’m sure by now, you’re wondering how I managed all of this. But wait! There’s more! I worked two jobs this semester while I managed all of those important activities. I work mostly at American Eagle where I’m trained to work in the stock room, but also on the floor as a Stylist. During our Holiday season, right before Christmas, I received a commendation for my exemplary customer service. It was so humbling to know that during this crazy season, I helped out enough people that my managers were made aware of what I was doing for them.

While doing all of these important and exciting activities, I also took five classes. This semester was definitely one of my most difficult, but absolutely worth it. I learned a lot about myself and what I can and can’t handle. I even learned about a potential career path (Marketing Research). Throughout this semester, I was hoping to learn what it is I wanted to do upon graduation. As of right now, I still don’t know, however I am sure that by trying new things, I will figure it out. I’m only 20 and still have much life ahead of me. I’m so excited for 2016 and the second half of my Junior year!