Intro Week

Sorry for such an extreme delay in blog writing. Who knew there was so much to keep you busy in little Copenhagen. Since I last posted, I have done… a lot. Before starting school, all of the exchange students arrived early for an “Intro Week” where we were able to meet the other students and learn more about CBS and life in Copenhagen.

As I wrote in my last blog, architecture here is very modern and uses lots of glass! CBS students took us on a campus tour to all four CBS buildings. This is slightly different than the near 50 buildings on the NCSU campus, but these are more beautiful (although I like all the brick at State). The main building on campus is Solbjerg Plads which contains the library and even the school bar, Nexus. Kilen is my favorite building and literally means “wedge”, which is it’s shape. Porcelaenshaven has dorms and an open space for study groups and eating lunch, with only some classrooms. Dalgas Have is the most horrible building I have ever been in and I’m not sure how it fits with the others. Overall the campus is beautiful and not too spread out around the city.

Inside Kilen

A main part of the Intro Week was to allow the exchange students to experience some typical Danish culture. Viking Bingo was quite entertaining with Viking trivia throughout. Did you know there are more pigs in Denmark than people? Where does their skål (their word for cheers) come from you may ask? The Vikings literally drank from skulls and clanked them together in celebration. Although it was hard to beat the prizes in Viking Bingo (I won the first season of Mad Men), learning to Danish folk dance ended up taking the cake. Professional folk dancers came in to teach us several variations including partner dancing and groups spinning in circles. It was SO much fun. I think the pros had a great time teaching us and it was such a fun and unique experience for us.

Folk Dancing Pros

Each exchange student is assigned a CBS buddy to help you and show you around. Mine is Sandra Damgaard and she is great! Her and the rest of my buddy team came to Tietgens for our Buddy Dinner in the middle of Intro Week. Everyone made a dish from their own country and we all sat and chatted together before going out to a party just for exchange students and their buddies! We had food from Italy, Iceland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, US and China.

Too much food!

A City Tour was also arranged. We actually ended up going to most of the tourist attractions in one day. We saw the Opera House, the most famous church - The Marble Church, the changing of the guards, Nyhavn - the famous harbor, the King's Gardens and the Round Tower. It was nice to walk around such a large part of the city and try to learn my way around. Of course all of the buildings were beautiful, a mix of old and new and just another excuse to explore!

Top of the Round Tower

To finish off the week, CBS hosted an extravagant Welcome Dinner with a Casino Royale theme, complete with buffet, bar, live band and DJ. There are 750 exchange students so everyone had a wonderful time meeting new people and dancing to music of the Danish swing band. It was a great week to meet people and get ready for school, although nothing could prepare me for the reading assignments that were about to start!

Debbie and I with Margaux and Florence

Upon Arrival

As many of you know, the final semester of my Master’s program has just started in Copenhagen, Denmark. If you’re horrible at geography like me, below is a reference to this small country.

I was excited for this European semester for many reasons: I had heard Copenhagen is beautiful, friends from Hong Kong live here, the courses are world renowned and it’s one of the darkest and coldest places in the world come November. Almost everyone I’ve met so far has been quick to apologize for the weather. This is one of the worst summers that Copenhagen has ever seen, but the city is still gorgeous and full of life (for now).

In front of one of the "5 seas" in the middle of the city

The architecture is completely unique, century old buildings right next to all glass modern buildings. Somehow the contrast works and makes the city that much more dynamic. Like any “big” city, there are different districts made up of students, troublemakers, families, etc. I live across the water from the city center on the island of Amager (pronounced Ama). While some Danes think the people that live over here are what we would call “hicks”, it is actually a peaceful and more spacious area. The exact location of where I live is in Tietgenkollegiet which is an extremely famous building in Cph built by the firm Lundgaard & Tranberg. It is extraordinary and people are constantly taking tours of the building or just wandering in to check out the space. It is a circular building made of mostly glass and copper (like many buildings here) and the main idea is that the common areas (kitchen, movie rooms, etc.) open up into the center of the circle and the personal areas (bedrooms) face outside for privacy. (Tay – you must see this in person. I guess you have to come visit J)

Tietgens

Since arriving, I have already been to several neat places! My friend Andrew and I went running through Frederiksberg Have (Park), which is beautiful. Within the park you can see the elephant exhibit from the zoo, a Chinese teahouse that one of the previous kings deemed necessary and a palace that was the prince’s summer home. I went to the Pride Parade with people from my kitchen and my buddy from CBS. Although we missed the actual parade, we saw lots of detailed and hand crafted outfits around the main square. My buddy and I also stayed to hear some Danish bands play including the winner of Popstar (Idol) and a group I really liked, Rasmus Walther. I’ve checked out the daisy jewelry at Georg Jensen’s factory outlet so I can be Aditi’s twin and been to the famous, colorful waterfront. Nyhavn was a canal dug by Swedish prisoners and was notorious to incoming sailors for its prostitution.

Pride Parade with Nick, Marie and Thore

Palace in Frederiksberg Have

Besides exploring the city and getting acquainted, the most exciting news is that I bought a bicycle!! Everyone, and I mean everyone, rides a bike around the city. Bikes have the right of way and cars actually pay attention to them. It’s amazing. It has been keeping me busy considering going anywhere automatically takes an extra 15 minutes, but it is worth it! Biking is so exciting!

Lots of bikes

The Richards Group

This summer I had the lovely opportunity to intern at The Richards Group. If you’re in the advertising industry, you know them. If you’re anyone else, you know their clients. Patrón, Bridgestone, Ram Trucks, Chick-fil-a, Summer’s Eve, The Home Depot, and the team I was on, Fruit of the Loom (to name a very, very few).

The best part about interning with the brand management team is being able to work so closely with every other division of the agency. My team was also integrated, meaning they worked closely with both traditional and digital advertising which was great exposure. I went to meetings with creative directors, public relations, and digital production. Through these types of experiences I gained such a better understanding of how all departments work together and the important role that brand managers play in regards to timing, strategy, and pretty much everything. I prepared materials for focus groups, collected and cataloged products for video shoots, and was fortunate enough to work directly with various publications regarding merchandising opportunities. I attended a print shoot for a new ad campaign and saw all of the steps that go into making a new commercial. We also went to seminars each week and heard from people with different roles within the company, complete with a creative poetry session about female products.

Although I learned way more than I could have even thought, the most rewarding part of the summer was how much fun I had doing it. Stan Richards ends every speech with “let’s go have fun”. It is also the first thing you see on the website, what people reference in meetings, what clients expect and truly how the entire company operates. Whenever people ask me about my summer internship, literally the first thing I say is, “it was so much fun!” because that is really what made it for me. I had the most amazing team of brand managers to work with and a very exciting “pod” as well. The company culture is what defines The Richards Group and makes it such a unique and inspiring place to be a part of. I’m pretty sure I’ll be pressed to find this type of environment anywhere else. 

Corley, Dennis, and I

More of the Fruit team - Mark, Me, Shayna, Crystal, Lindsay

With some of the other interns in Austin - Stephen, Me, Andrea, Joe

Constant Reminders of Asia!

As I was flipping through magazines at The Richards Group today, I came across these exciting "Asian" ads. In The Bold Look of Kohler, the picture was taken in Guilin, China where Team Hong Kong went for a week and saw these same stone formations! The other is less oriental, but still clearly reminded me of Hong Kong so I wanted to share!

Oh the lovely world of advertising!

Springtime in the U.S.

After arriving home on Christmas Eve, I went straight into holiday festivities and didn’t even have time to be tired… until later. I also became a temporary narcoleptic on the plane ride home and couldn’t even hold a conversation with Andrew, but that’s a different story that has to do with me being physically incapable of saying “no” to anything in Hong Kong. Christmas was great with everyone back home for the holidays and being able to come home directly into a celebration! It was also exciting to pass out all of my fun Asian gifts to everyone!

The Welcome Party at the Airport

SNOW!!

Over the coming months, a few key points changed in my life and here is a very abbreviated version of my spring semester.

Coming back from HK, the Trio expected to be going to Australia for the spring semester and planned on flying out in a little over a month. Well did that ever change? In the span of 24 hours we rerouted our entire program to Europe, specific country unsure, but Europe nonetheless. This meant changing pre-purchased flights, signing up for US classes, and trying to understand what was going on in general.

We got it worked out (sort of) and started off by skipping the first week of classes to go on our already planned trip to NYC to meet with Industry. We met with Gerber Childrenswear, VF Corp, Gap Inc., Cotton Incorporated, Welspun, and Polo Ralph Lauren. Awesome! The week was packed with meetings AND some exploration around the city. Overall it was a really a great trip and we were able to experience NYC during it’s typical winter weather which although painful, was pretty neat.

In Central Park

Top of the Empire State Building

Having not expected to be in NC for the semester, my mom and I had already penciled in a road trip to Philly to see Taylor before I left for Oz. So my semester was on a roll with another great trip! We drove up so we could cart way too much stuff up to Taylor’s new place. While we were there we ate lots of good food, met some of his co-workers for homemade pizza night!, checked out a few furniture stores and had an overall great time hanging out in the cold. Philly is really growing on me as a city and I definitely wanted to go back for another visit!

Dinner with Tay and his friends

Eventually things started to settle and I began to feel like I was actually in school for the semester. This was difficult for all three of us to really comprehend for quite a while. I took 4 classes: Marketing Research, Sustainability, Product & Brand Management, and Strategic Technology Management. The semester ended up being really busy with schoolwork, planning for Europe (Manchester vs. Copenhagen), eating lots of sushi, hanging out with the rents, occasionally going to Raleigh Times, Michael Jackson Tribute band show, Holly Hike for Mr. Bradley Bushman’s birthday, and meeting new fun textile friends (Sarah and Richard).

My gfs before MJ Show

Bear Hug from Bradley

Mags and I on the Holly Hike

Sarah, Richard (he's British) and I at COT

During the semester, another trip was planned to Philadelphia for Spring Break. Mags, Moser, Brad, and I went up to visit Taylor for the weekend. Most of you know, but I love my brother. So what a better trip than having my brother AND our friends in one place. Epic. Highlights include celebrating St. Patty’s day and Mags almost got in a fight, having a Philly cheesesteak rival competition, participating in an extremely extreme dance party, and spent lots of time and laughing and chatting away.

St. Patty's Day Party throughout Philly

The next big event in the semester was the annual SPCA K9-3K. This is my little Fredward and I after the walk.

All the dogs were adorable and it was another great success. Unfortunately, the night of the walk, a series of tornadoes came directly through downtown Raleigh and surrounding areas and did lots of damage. The clean up has been a process, but things are starting to look back to normal. It was just such a weird experience and unexpected by the whole community really.

Finally, the semester wrapped up with a typical Medlin gathering with lots of food and games and friends! The Saturday Night Dinner was super fun with our own violent Easter egg hunt and outdoor dinner. Great chance to get everyone together one more time before leaving for the summer. More to come on that topic…

Easter Egg Hunt getting serious

After the main event

Time to Eat!