New opportunities, unique experiences: Eight students from OWL in New York › WIR

The New York office of the five state universities from OWL enables students to do an internship in and around the “Big Apple” every year. A meeting of the group on Roosevelt Island shows how enriching this can be. Anyone interested in participating in 2023 can apply until August 14, 2022 at https://www.campus-owl.org/experience-abroad/

Bielefeld (fhb). Sirens wail in the distance, a seaplane rushes by and lands gently on the East River. “New York is the city that never sleeps – that’s a well-known fact, but really experiencing it makes all the difference,” enthuses Michael Epp, one of eight students who took part in Campus OWL’s Professional Experience Program (PEP) this year Internships in New York and New Jersey.

The program is one of the activities of the New York office of the five state universities of Ostwestfalen-Lippe – an exciting and impressive offer for students, as became clear at a Sunday meeting of the participants on Roosevelt Island. The island, named after the 32nd President of the USA, is located between Queens and Manhattan and offers a view of the Manhattan skyline. “The only thing we should be afraid of is fear itself,” reads carved into the stone floor of a memorial in the center of the island.

The mindset is: It all works somehow!

The students weren’t afraid of this adventure at first, but they had a good deal of respect, says Jana Schwede, who is doing her internship at the Goethe Institute in New York. It is her first long stay abroad. “I have the feeling that I’ve become bolder here, because I’m doing things that I wouldn’t have dared to do at home.” Traveling with complete strangers and sharing an apartment with them, for example. Or just to master everyday life in New York. Sometimes that’s challenge enough.

One of the biggest hurdles in New York is finding an affordable place to live. The students had to take care of that themselves, says the head of the New York campus OWL office, Dr. Katja Simons, who helped bring the program to life: “Individual initiative is part of the project. Just do it instead of hesitating for a long time. You learn that faster here than almost anywhere else.” Jana, a student of culture and society, accepted this challenge: “Here, my typically German attitude has turned into a mindset of ‘everything will work out somehow’.” New Yorkers are just in love with success. That’s contagious.

Enormous Kairos density: “There is an opportunity around every corner”

And: Godo Zabur Singh from India, who is studying facade design in Detmold, thinks that there is no other city in which the so-called Kairos density is as high as in New York. “There’s an opportunity around every corner that needs to be seized – Kairos, in fact!” Godo is doing his internship at Transsolar in New York, an architectural office that specializes in innovative climate and energy concepts. For Godo, a dream job with fantastic encounters and new opportunities that appear out of nowhere every day. ‘Dream Big’ has gone from a phrase to an internalized routine for Godo, he says. “Now I feel like I can do so much more.” If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Another phrase that suddenly makes sense to him.

Arriving at the Roosevelt Monument on the southern tip of the island, concrete walls block the view of the skyline, which everyone but Godo finds at least irritating. “That has its justification,” the prospective architect explains to us. “The walls form an escape and show the viewer what to focus on.” In a city like New York, where distraction is omnipresent, the only chance to survive.

Personal contacts were made very quickly

The group seems very intimate. And this despite the fact that Michael Epp, Pascal Hansen, Sibel Kaya, Jana Schwede, Niels Neier, Christopher Opelt, Godo Zabur Singh and Lukas Weidich only met each other a few months ago at the introductory week of the OWL program in New York. As different as the participants are, what connected everyone from the start was their curiosity.

“I didn’t really have high expectations, but rather questions and wanted to start the internship as impartially as possible,” says Michael Epp. Pascal, who is doing his internship with Michael and Lukas at Siemens in Princeton, New Jersey, talks about the regular update team meetings at Siemens, where everyone reports on their progress on the project. The special thing: “In these meetings, everyone should also share updates about their personal lives. In front of the entire team!” An experience that the three of them had not expected and that helped everyone to make initial contacts on a personal level.

How do international teams work in the USA and what can I take with me to Germany from a different work culture? Finding individual answers to these questions is also the goal of the program, which obviously worked out well for this group. “I am pleased that we can offer students from the OWL universities this experience,” says the head of the program.

Thomas Wolfe: You can be in New York in five minutes

During the visit to Roosevelt Island, the group poses for a souvenir photo in front of the New York skyline. Impressive, but somehow normal for most people. Niels Neier, philosophy student and intern at the American Council on Germany, describes the phenomenon – how could it be otherwise – from a philosophical perspective. He calls it ‘expectation gap’. On the one hand, a lot of things in the “Big Apple” overwhelmed him. So much so that he could hardly believe it. “And then there were things that weren’t as extreme as I had imagined. The streets are full of people, but not as crowded as I imagined. The skyscrapers are huge, but somehow it still felt familiar very quickly and somehow normal, calm and relaxed.”

Jana agrees: “Sometimes I’ve completely forgotten that I’m in New York because it kind of feels like home.” The American author Thomas Wolfe once put it in a nutshell: “One belongs to New York instantly , one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.” One belongs to New York immediately. After five minutes as much as after five years. Every student feels that.

It’s rewarding to face the unknown

“New York is like five cities in one. And yet, in a small scene like my industry, the city sometimes seems like a village,” adds Christopher Opelt. He is a qualified sound engineer and is doing his internship at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn. “I am sure that my time in New York will shape me. Exactly how that will probably only become apparent in a few years. In any case, it will be a part of my life that I will fondly remember.”

The students want to do something together after the meeting on Roosevelt Island. Restaurant, bowling, rooftop, concert? There are so many options that it is difficult to decide. That probably wouldn’t have happened to them in OWL. “New York is about getting out of your comfort zone and enjoying it,” says another, and the group disappears into the siren din of the big city, probably to do just that – embrace the unknown and enjoy it.

Note d. Red.: The students speak in the article as private individuals and not on behalf of the internship provider. Author: Johanna Schnüpke

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