About My Internship: Romeing

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Julie Kim

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Julie Kim

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> Ciao <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> Temple University <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2022 <i>Destination city & country:</i> Rome, italy <i>Program provider:</i> Temple Rome <i>Major/minor:</i> Communication Studies / Entrepreneurship / Content Creation <i>Demographics:</i> First-Generation, Korean-American <i>Future career aspirations:</i> Further down my professional career, I want to work in an advertising agency that would allow me to travel and work digitally, specifically in content creation. <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> 1. Learn how my identity as a minority exists in Italy, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is important for me to overcome the stereotypes of American tourists and have difficult, but necessary, conversations about the increased fear of Asians since the outbreak. 2. Volunteer as an English tutor at one of the three local high schools Temple Rome is associated with. 3. Get experience with an advertising agency to learn about persuasion techniques used in Italian media and society.

I am working for a company called Romeing. Their target market consists of about 10 million tourists who visit Rome yearly and the 270,000 foreigners who live here. Their content mainly focuses on different aspects of lifestyle such as music, art and culture, nightlife, and eating. It is available online as a blog at https://www.romeing.it/ and was available in printed little magazines. I was impressed when I learned that Romeing was the first free press, event, and lifestyle magazine devoted to Rome entirely written in English!

I can only imagine the difficulties of Romeing due to Covid-19, considering the target audience focuses on expats and tourists. When Rome was in the orange zone, many places, including museums and restaurants, could not be experienced at its fullest potential. The Lazio region is now in yellow, which allows people to visit museums and eat at restaurants. I hope that the Romeing Instagram account can inform people who dream of coming to Rome and are waiting to explore Rome safely.

Regarding the organization of the company, it is very individualized. Initially, I was supposed to come into the office every other week, located about five minutes from my official apartment for the semester. However, I am completing my work virtually since my boss does not go into the office much. My initial thoughts on working for Romeing is that it is much more laid back from what I expected. He still gives me plenty of work to do throughout the week. I am often multi-tasking multiple assignments such as creating a guide, brainstorming the next quiz question and answers, and finding quality images. To my surprise, I find myself working independently well.

Our primary form of communication is through text, specifically WhatsApp. Usually, my previous jobs required that we communicate mostly through e-mail because it is more formal. I only used cell if there is an emergency or if my job required it. Overall, I appreciate how communicative my boss is. He is very responsive to the texts that I send him and always replies very quickly.

I believe that Romeing is demonstrating a strong commitment to improving the physical and media world. Romeing connects people with Rome’s city, providing much more than the “Top Best 10 Things to do in Rome” but is catering to different interests and likes through music, art, food, and more. Even with the Covid-19 pandemic, Romeing has been working on keeping ex-pats, locals, and the few tourists informed. They recently posted an article called “The Future of Art in Rome: How Private Art Galleries and Artists are Surviving the Pandemic.” This company provides captivating images and articles to inform Rome and those interested in coming to Rome who primarily speaks English.

Romeing is committed to providing insight into Rome’s gems by providing article/blog content on their website and create engaging content on their social media. For example, I recently started working on weekly trivia quizzes to post on Tuesday’s Instagram stories. I find social media a powerful tool because it can connect users and experience Rome through their screens, hoping that they would visit (or re-visit) one day. Considering how intertwined our lives are with our devices, I can see how Romeing can educate people about the beautiful city.