Ahh, summer! As soon as finals week ended, NYU Shanghai students packed their bags and boarded trains and planes, preparing to travel to a new country or return home to see family and friends. But many chose to add a new dimension to their summer—the college staple of a summer job or internship. From Budapest to Beijing, students are seizing the opportunity to take on the challenge of unique jobs and programs far from home. On Century Avenue catches up with a few NYU Shanghai students who are working and learning across the globe.Lindsay Zhang, Intern at VICE China, Beijing I’ve spent most of my time of the summer as an editor assistant and social media intern at VICE China. I like it a lot even though it still surprises/scares me every day. When I walked into the office on the first day of work, I saw a lot of weird stuff, including a fake butt with a vagina lying on my table.Everyone here has that weird vibe that shocks you at the first glance, but when you remember that they work for VICE, everything makes sense. For instance, my boss’s Instagram and WeChat moments are filled with weird pictures like dustbins, toilet seats, weed and other random objects, without a single caption. But she’s very interesting, and like everyone else here, she doesn’t care about what others think about her at all.As for me, I write and edit articles, and keep VICE’s Weibo and WeChat updated. Therefore I get to read, translate and edit tons of articles, including all the weird ones you’ve read on VICE’s Facebook page and Snapchat.Joanne Chun, Intern at World Youth Alliance, New York City This summer, I have had the privilege to do an internship at the World Youth Alliance, an international nongovernmental organization dedicated to representing the world’s youth at the United Nations. I spend a great amount of time at the UN Headquarters and the Economic and Social Council. At the end of August, I will be in Hong Kong as a part of the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) conference. In my free time, I explore antique bookstores in New York. I am grateful for these opportunities, but I can’t wait to come back to Shanghai!Adriano Albarosa, Student at Princeton in Beijing, Beijing Coming to Princeton in Beijing this summer to study Chinese was definitely one of my best decisions. Only two weeks in, we can already feel the improvement and are so enthusiastic about all the program has to offer. I am gonna admit, it was a bit difficult and weird to always use Chinese at the start, but our super encouraging teachers and fellow students have made it easy for us to transition into only speaking Mandarin. Here at PiB they are super serious about the language pledge but we all feel this pushes us even further to immerse ourselves. The program is definitely a lot of commitment but if we manage our time well we can find time to do some sport or casually snack on some 小吃 outside the dorms.Nofar Hamrany, Forward Thinking Political Activist, Belfast This summer, I joined an Israeli political youth activist delegation to Belfast, Northern Ireland, facilitated by Forward Thinking--a proactive organization that works to promote a more inclusive peace process in the Middle East. The purpose of traveling to Belfast was to learn about the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland by personally meeting leading figures from both Unionist and Republican communities. The learning process was not to merely hear a model on how to achieve peace, but to take part in an ongoing dialogue on the challenges, successes and failures of Northern Ireland’s process and, from this, to explore the key themes that might be relevant to our own context in the Middle East.Across the four days of the visit, I learned by participating in intensive discussions with young activists, academics, former paramilitaries, and victims of violence, walking around the streets and seeing the walls separating the communities, and hearing the young citizens' views over a pint of Guinness at the local pubs.Noel Konagai, Journalism Intern at Euronews and DURF Grant Recipient, Budapest Euronews is Europe's most watched TV channel but it is also a web platform for sharing news. So far I've written a couple of articles on China. In Europe, we are geographically so distant from China that many people have misconceptions about the country. So my task became to dismiss some of these misconceptions. My second English article called "Favela tourism and the human cost of gentrifying Rio" trended as the second most viewed one.I got the DURF grant for my research with a friend (Katarzyna Olszewska) about the differences in the network structures of Twitter and VK (Russian social media). I got inspired by the class I took last semester called Complexity where we learned about Network and Information theory. We are examining whether there is any correlation between the language or the features of the social media platforms and the structure of the network that the users have set up.Kenny Song, Associate Product Manager Intern at X, California I'm spending most of my summer working at X (previously Google X) in Mountain View, California as an Associate Product Manager intern. I'm on the Project Loon team, which is a project to deliver internet access by using high altitude LTE-equipped balloons. It's an amazingly cool idea that pretty much only Google would be crazy enough to take on, and spans the frontiers of many fields, including mechanical engineering, wireless networking, balloon design, meteorology, optimization theory, flight operations, business development, and international law. My role is to work with the engineers, operations, and cross-functional teams to develop new methods to improve balloon steering and navigation. One of the coolest parts of my summer is getting to see all of the other (secret) futuristic technologies that X is developing. Outside of work, I'm exploring San Francisco with other interns, taking Japanese classes, and worrying about post-grad plans. After my internship, I'll be taking a two-week trip to Japan, and then returning to NYU Abu Dhabi for the fall semester.Annie Seaman, Student at American Councils for International Education, Taiwan This summer, I am spending eight weeks in an immersive language program in Tainan through the American Councils for International Education (ACIE), Taiwan. Located in the south of the island, Tainan is a unique city filled with history and culture. The program is designed to teach two semester of university level Chinese in eight weeks. The expectations are high and the pace is fast but I think a fast pace is necessary in order to progress quickly in a language. Additionally, ACIE participants are expected to sign a language pledge, promising to only speak Chinese during their time in the program. The program is held through the Chinese Language Center and the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). NCKU is a big university in the middle of Tainan city and it is ranked as one of the top four universities in Taiwan.During the week, my days are packed with classes but on the weekends, I have some free time to explore the island. The activities ACIE offers on the weekends differ from week to week. Some weekends we go on trips to other cities in Taiwan (Taipei, Kenting, Kaohsiung etc.) while other weekends are spent in Tainan with homestay families or visiting local sights. The days are long, demanding and sometimes draining but I want to pack in as much as I can during my time here so that I can look back and be completely satisfied with my time spent here. This article was written by Savannah Billman. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Savannah Billman