Mary Elizabeth Hoffman, a 20-year-old design and merchandising major, is in her junior year at Drexel. She is originally from New York and as fall term began, Mary Elizabeth retured to her homestate to start her co-op with the public relations firm KB Brand Partners in New York City.
When the time came for Mary Elizabeth, who goes by MEH, to begin her co-op search, she admitted that she was scared out of her mind. She had no clue where to begin. “I was afraid that I would be unable to find something that matched my interests,” she said. After interviewing with six different potential employers, she made her decision and a weight was lifted from her shoulders.
Her decision to accept a position at KB Brand Partners, a “small boutique PR agency in New York, owned by two women who both worked for DKNY for 12 years,” was almost a no-brainer. The opportunity to have hands-on experience in her field was the deciding factor in MEH’s decision. “I knew that working in a small company would ensure that I wouldn’t get lost in a group of interns,” she said. Her daily tasks, which are different every day, include pulling samples for photoshoots with celebrities, running errands, delivering clothes and everything else in between.
Although she’s only been working at the company for a short amount of time, she recalled some of her favorite highlights so far, “… Hanging out with Rio Uribe, the designer of Gypsy Sport, pulling clothes for MØ and seeing Josh Groban.”
Throughout her co-op process, MEH admitted that the most difficult part of the process was finding housing in New York City. “Finding housing was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I always had my home as an option, in case I didn’t find anything, but I wanted that to be my last resort, only,” she said.
For four weeks, she explored countless listings, Facebook posts, real estate agencies, websites and personal connections to find housing. Finally, during week nine of summer term, she found an apartment through a student housing website called My Grad Pad. She signed a lease for a five-bedroom apartment that she shares with one Drexel student and three other roommates who were placed with her through random selection.
Since then, MEH has shared her experiences of living in New York City, which she said isn’t as glamorous as some of us would like to assume. On the day she moved in, there were reports of a bombing in Chelsea that rocked the city. This, of course, worried her, as she lives only a few short blocks away from the place where it happened. A couple of days later, there was an abandoned suitcase left in the Flatiron District near her office that caused police to close down the streets. These events, unfortunately, cast a dark cloud over her first week in “the real world.”
Regardless of how it began, MEH has high hopes for the remaining six moths of her co-op. “I hope to broaden my network of connections and hopefully form bonds with influential people in the industry. I also hope to master the art that is living on my own in New York City,” she said.