CUNY Arts Networking Event.

 

This past Friday, I attended a 2 hour meetup with CUNY Arts for a crash course on networking. We discussed how to network, developing an elevator pitch and why networking isn’t so scary. The event was located at the Museum of the City of New York. It was a great opportunity to connect with students outside of my school.

 The event was hosted by CUNY Cultural Corps. CUNY Cultural Corps is a sector that gives students a chance to intern at a arts or cultural space CUNY wide. The paid internships last for roughly 6 months. In between working, students are also able to visit  cultural institutions across the city to get a wide range of experience. This year, I participated in the meetup as an alumni to CUNY Cultural Corps as I was a part of the cohort for the 2017-2018 year. It was a different experience to be getting information from the event yet also sharing with the students.

  As a CUNY Cultural Corps Intern I worked at an art space called Recess. Recess is a non for profit gallery space that artist can come in and literally make their vision come to life. There have been shows about everything from tattooing (where you can actually get a tattoo) and performance art. What makes Recess unique is the ability to work with youth in the community. Aside from being an art space, Recess also serves as a youth diversion program. They give teens who were charged with minor offenses like hopping a turnstile a chance to work and learn how to handle art. At Recess, I would help with their designs for promotional events, and prepare for their annual fundraiser.

 Because I am an Alumni of the CUNY Cultural Corps program, I was asked by the coordinator, Claudia Garcia to share with the current students any advice I had for getting internships or my experience in the program. This was a new thing for me but I was still excited to do so. It was good to talk to younger students about sites that I have used to get internships because there are a lot out there that aren’t credible. In addition to that, it was good to talk about my experience last year compared to this year with people who are currently in the process to see how things are different yet the same.

  The thing that I was asked most often from the students in Cultural Corps was how did I manage between interning and going to school. A lot of them stated that this was their first internship so they felt a lot of pressure to juggle it all. My main piece of advice was good time management. I think that was the main thing that saved me from being lost or confused with how I was going to make room for everything. Another piece of advice that I shared was to be open with the people that I worked with about my schedule. I was fortunate to be at an organization who was understanding of the face that I’m a student and were familiar with the peaks of assignments that can happen throughout a semester. 

  One thing I found really beneficial was working on the elevator pitch. Even though I am an alumni, I could still learn because I’m a young professional. We were given a template to run over and then tailor to our lives in particular. This was something I never had the opportunity to do so that was the greatest takeaway for me. We then got a chance to read them off to each other and give each other advice on what needs to be adjusted to make the pitch brief. I think this is beneficial in the advertising field because a lot of people are looking to level up, but if you can just promote yourself in a way that doesn’t waste anyone’s time.

 Something else that I found beneficial was to actually hear about the different art spaces that collaborated with CUNY Cultural Corps this year. It’s an opportunity to hear about a lot spaces I wouldn’t normally know exist. This is good because there is often a lot of competition for jobs at big name agencies and galleries especially in New York but there are so many spaces that still need workers and offer lucrative positions.

  To conclude, the CUNY Arts meetup was successful in my opinion. We got a chance to network with students we wouldn’t normally meet and share tips on how to have a successful internship.