Peach of Mind.

(Hastily written, sorry for errors!)

So I made it to NYC/the career outlook thingy at MTV! Thanks Hsiao-Tung for agreeing to wake up in the ungodly hour of 6 AM, going with me and directing my disoriented self. Subways in NY are a tad creepier than U-Bahn. Or a lot.

It was a great program!

There were some 7 Wes students and Rachel who works for the CRC. We went up to the corporate offices floor of the Viacom building and sat in the big meeting room. They had prepared for us some fruits, bagels, muffins, coffee… :)

You can feel the witty side of the company right away. On top of the big screen was this sign:

A moment later the president, Stephen Friedman ‘91, came in and greeted us. He told us his story from the point he graduated from Wes (a COL major) and what steps he took until he finally got here, cool story, and then his vision on the future of MTV… how MTV campaigns for current issues among youths of America. Like, “Teen Moms” was created when there was a rise in teen pregnancy— not to glorify teen pregnancy itself, but instead to show how depressing it actually is (apparently the rate has gone down since). A lot of the shows revolve around the current topics in our generation today, obesity, online dating, online social platforms, etc. Even when, for example, Jersey Shore’s “The Situation” got very depressed on screen, there would be links on the show page to online resources for young people on how to understand depression. Also, a new MTV campaign for the 2012 election is no longer “choose or lose”, cos a lot of people chose Obama and feel like they lost still. Now it’s “the power of ‘12”.

After that, the EVPs for Music and Talent and the senior director of Music came in and talked to us about what they do (like keeping eye on new rising artists and flying to Poland to negotiate with Jay-Z and Kanye, haha), how frustrating it could be at times, and how much of the breakthroughs are actually based on ideas of young people in their 20s. Next is the VP Creative Director for MTV On-Air Promos. She also has a cool job and was very nice :) The VP for Series Development talked a lot about filming of Jersey Shore and “that one time Snooki got arrested”. VP for human resources talked about internship at MTV… (unpaid :( *sad) VP for Public relations who talked about countering bad press coverage, VP for Digital Media, and VP for research who talked about shifting trends, how MTV tracks them and about not understanding “lolcats”. The last 3 VPs wore the same black thick-rimmed “hipster” glasses. Awesome.

(VP for Public Relations. his glasses are on the table.)

All of them also talked about all aspects of production of MTV programs, some of which I’ve clearly never watched. Teen Wolf, Awkward, Real World, Skins the US version (which was controversial and discontinued), and also new programs: I just want my pants back (out in February), new Punk’d! :D

In between these sessions, we had a tour of the building, the cubicles, the studios, production workshops…

(the TRL window from which the artists would wave to the screaming crowd. Miss those TRL days… psh I was like, what, 7 or 8?)

(In one of the meeting rooms, production wing)

(studio)

(view from one of the office windows)

SO! It was an exciting experience, all-in-all, all of the people we met there, from the president, VPs, president’s assistant, to the security guard of the studios, are very confident, articulate, enthusiastic, and passionate about what they are doing. For real. I’m impressed.

After I was done, I met Hsiao-Tung in Times Square, and we went to Forever 21 for a bit- and headed to Grand Central to catch the train back to New Haven.

On the Metro North, I was telling Hsiao-Tung about the President being a COL alum when the lady sitting next to us asked, “are you guys from Wesleyan? Talking about COL… must be from Wesleyan.”

This lady was headed to Wesleyan for his son’s basketball game. She graduated from Wesleyan, so did her husband, and her daughter who graduated last year. Such a Wesleyan family. At the end, she offered us to join her cab to Wes from New Haven, refusing to split the cost cos she “needs to take it anyway”. In the taxi, she asked about our majors and what we want to do after graduation… (that question we try to answer everyday now). I was like, “um, uh, I don’t know… music or probably psych? PR? HR? New York? West Coast? Hey, whatever opens up.” She then asked me to send her my resume ;)

…loving the Wesleyan network.