A Day in the Big City

By Jessica Morales (North Hollywood, CA)

Approaching the city of New York for the first time, I felt amazed. The busy city, defined by its tall buildings, traffic, and its diversity, was all that I had imagined.

One of the highlights of my day was the tour of Time Warner Center, home to CNN New York. Walking through newsroom and studios gave me the opportunity to experience something most viewers from CNN don’t ever get the chance to see.

After the tour, we split up into groups and hit the streets of New York to investigate whether local pharmacies were selling expired medicines and other products to their customers. As a journalist, I was really excited to find expired products in many of the pharmacies we visited. On the other hand, it meant that customers were purchasing items that were no longer suitable for use.

After finding several jars of expired baby food in a Walgreens, I knew that questioning the store manager was going to be very interesting. Surprised and embarrassed, he answered our questions nervously at first, but after we probed further, he told us he was busy and left. Nonetheless, I felt proud of our work. We’ll be publishing details of our experience at that store and others throughout New York in next week’s Princeton Summer Journal.

I really enjoyed the trip to New York. Learning from experienced journalists and having the opportunity to work as one myself, even if only for one day, made the trip an unbelievable experience.