After a little over a week here in Sydney I’ve officially decided I’m in love with the city.  I started my internship with the Parramatta Eels Rugby League Club and I don’t have one bad thing to say about it.  All of my co-workers are very welcoming and my supervisor has me working on everything she is – I’m basically her shadow.  I got to actually meet some of the rugby players to shoot intro videos and record radio ads.  It was really interesting to see how the intro videos are made.  We hired a video crew to come in so I got to see the whole process of their set up and how they actually got the athletes to do what they needed them to for the shot.  Recording the radio ads was cool, too.  We went to a real recording studio you might see in a movie with the different types of mics, computers, and audio equipment.  Watching them edit the ad was so interesting because I have no previous experience with audio equipment like that.  That was my first day in a nutshell so I’d say it was pretty great first day.

I am the youngest in the office by at least five years, but I haven’t come across any problems with the age difference thus far because most of the conversation revolves around the Eels.  This is a great opportunity for me to learn about the history of the team and catch up on Aussie slang regarding the sport.  We had a home game last night that my supervisor was nice enough to get some friends and I into.  We had full access to everything in the stadium.  She gave us a behind the scenes tour, we watched the game from corporate seats, and I got to see my first ever rugby game.  It’s a brutal sport but it’s fun to watch.  We had a great time.

My Sport Management class also started this week.  There are only three of us in the class, including myself, which I thought was going to be a bit uncomfortable but my teacher did a great job of approaching that.  Since it’s such a small class he is going to cater some of the aspects of the course to what we specifically want to get out of it.  For instance, I’m taking this class for my HR major so he is going to try to plan a “field trip” to the Sydney Swans rugby team through a contact he has there so I can see first hand how HR relates to a professional sports team.

Overall, this has been a great week.  I’m finally recovered from the jet lag and I got a start on what I’ll be doing for the rest of the program regarding classes and work.  Just one week has sparked an interest in me to potentially work for a professional sports team in my future career.  I’m excited for what the rest of my trip has to offer and can’t wait to experience it.