Why NYC's public transportation is amazing

Rainy days are not fun. Especially when the rain turns into little balls of ice that pummel your face like it's a moving target - kind of like Wednesday. But when it rains, I am grateful for public transportation because I can stand in the shelter of the bus stop. That usually means that I can spare myself the sight of my pathetic umbrella flipping in the presence of the fiercely nonexistent wind.

The waterfalls in the stations remind
 me of Niagara Falls.

But aside from these minor grievances, NYC does have a pretty amazing transportation system. Considering that you only need to pay $2.25 for a ride which can take you from one corner of the city to another, NYC's public transportation system is quite the system: the subway system alone has over 400 stations which service over five million people on an average workday.

Due to the fact that the subway system is so old - the first sections of the subway began operating in 1904 - there are some really impressive things about the subways, which, if you are feeling adventurous and decide to go exploring, can turn into an exciting expedition. Like the adventure that I had on the 6 train.

So I was on the 6 train one weekend and, it being the weekend, the train skipped my stop and went straight to it's last stop. Since I am lazy, I decided that I should just stay on the train. I mean, the trains always turn around, right?

The old City Hall stop. It looks just like this
in real life!

I wasn't actually sure. But I had made my choice and I wasn't going to admit I was wrong so I sat back in my seat and pretended to know what was going on. Then the most amazing thing happened: the 6 train went by the old City Hall station which was closed in 1945. It was gorgeous. The experience was like discovering a dinosaur fossil - or what I imagine it would be like to discover a dinosaur fossil.

Anyway, the point is that the subways are pretty cool: they're cheap to ride on and full of history. So if you had the chance to check out the New York Transit Museum, you should go. You'll definitely find out more about the quirks of the transportation system. Coincidentally, One To World is organizing a tour of the New York Transit Museum on Tuesday, April 5th. And what a coincidence! Here's a link to where you can register for the One To World tour.

Maybe you should click on it. What with all the coincidences, today may just be your lucky day!

One To World in the Huffington Post!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Check out One To World's Global Classroom program in the Huffington Post! 

Harlem Students Dance to an Irish Jig

Thanks to Siobhan for a wonderful St Patrick's Day themed class and the fantastic students of Harlem Academy!

Over the past summer, as I was showing my friends around the greatest city in the world, I had made a casual remark about how walking through Manhattan was essentially walking past every single company that has ever rejected a job application from me. Having applied for a million and one jobs and having gone through an infinite number of one night stand equivalents - a moment of bliss when I get the call for an interview, the awkward waiting period afterwards, and then ultimately, rejection –  I realize that I’ve learned a lot (aka developed a long list of complaints) from my job-hunting expeditions.

The first lesson being that rejection letters have a lot of room for improvement. The “Dear X, while you are a highly qualified candidate, you aren’t good enough” letter is anything but consolatory. How about something nicer? I bet you would feel good about yourself if a company wrote to you: “Dear X, You are an amazing candidate and we would hire you on the spot if not for the fact that we require employees to jump in front of a moving train while gathering radioactive sludge and fighting off mutant geese that like to breathe fire. We just value your life too much to put you through that. So we hired a chump instead.”

The second lesson was that career fairs are mechanisms of torture. Who likes to stand in line for half an hour to talk to a recruiter for 15 seconds? Not to mention the fact that recruiters then use up those precious 15 seconds to tell you to apply online. You mean I could have been stuffing my face with ice cream and clicking away at my computer in a zen-like coma instead of standing  in line for hours in shoes that hurt while suffocating from the heat generated by hundreds of people crammed into one tiny room? You should have said something sooner.

Cute but clueless. 

And the third lesson was that it helps to know what you’re applying for. Back in the day - when I was a naïve college freshman - I had applied for an internship and did not quite know how to prepare for the interview. When my interviewer asked me a question about the industry, I stared at her - and did the goldfish. Let’s just say it’s not very attractive to open and close your mouth like a fish gasping for its’ last breath as it flops around on the floor right before it drops dead when you're trying to come up with an appropriate response.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the job. Forever afterwards, however, I have been very diligent about doing my homework before going to any interview. And externships, where you interact with someone in your chosen industry or shadow them for a day, are a great way to prepare for interviews. It's a chance to learn about the industry that you want to work in and the types of positions that you want to apply for because you’re getting facts straight from the source.

Last weekend, for example, I met with a lady who worked in a field that I want to establish a career in. Although it was just an informational interview, I learned a lot more from the hour that I spent talking to her than I would ever have learned from googling. The best part was that I was able to directly ask her what employers look for when hiring and what I can do to make myself stand out.

So do yourself a favor. Don’t do the awkward goldfish: take advantage of the job shadowing opportunity that One To World offers to students. It's a worthwhile investment.