Amanda & Mathilda

The North-West Passage visited the interns Amanda and Mathilda at Neurogym. We helped them with the J-1 Visa and their internship placement. Their internship is located in the mountains of Rancho Santa Fe and we hade a little interview with both of them.

AMANDA

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Amanda Egnell and I am 24 years old and I live in Gothenburg. I am doing my 3rd year at University of Borås and for this semester I am doing my internship at Neurogym in San Diego as a marketing intern. My interest for marketing started in high school when I studied marketing and economics, a field I continued studying at University of Borås. I have always had a great interest for traveling and seeing the world. I find it exciting and interesting to discover new cultures and places, so an internship abroad was a perfect choice for me.

What are Neurogym working with?
NeuroGym is a brain research and a product development company specializing in developing neuro-technology that helps individuals maximize their potential. They produce Neuro-Training systems, products and services that are proven to help reduce stress, fears and anxiety while re-training the brain to reach higher levels of focus, confidence, motivation and productivity. It is a big studio in the office where they film everything.

How did it go with the release event you had a few days ago with Neurogym?
John Assaraf, the owner of the company, released his second book (Innercise). So last week, it was released on Amazon and other retailers. Therefore we had a book release-party where we celebrated his book. It was a lot of food, people could get a signed book and John was speaking. It was over 100 people there and the most people from the office were there. Also John’s friends and other big profiles from the industry where there. It was super cool and very educational to mingle with a big group of americans you had never meet before.

Have you any other events coming up with the company?
Yes, the years biggest event is this Saturday (October 6th) and it is a BRAIN-A-THON. It is a 8 hour long Liveshow with world-leading brain and money experts. It is about scientifically proven methods to remove the mental and emotional obstacles that hold you back from achieving your financial goals and dream life. Last year it was over 100.000 people who watch the show. So Neurogym hope for even better this year. I am really exiting for that!

What is the best thing about your internship at Neurogym?
​The best thing is that everyone who is working here is very nice and that the office's location is absolutely amazing. The office is located in the mountains of Rancho Santa Fe which is extremely beautiful with a very beautiful view. The office is also dog friendly, which I love haha! It is also very exciting  to work for John Assaraf who are very famous here in America. John has built 5 multimillion dollar companies, written 2 New York Times Bestselling books and featured in 8 movies, including the blockbuster hit “The Secret” and “Quest For Success” with Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama. He has also visited famous television shows in the USA, like Ellen DeGeneres.

MATHILDA

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
​My name is Mathilda Eriksson and I am 22 years old and I am from Kungälv just 20 minutes north of Gothenburg. I'm an Event Management student at the university of Borås. I like to hang out with my friends and family, work out and listen to good music.

What are you doing at Neurogym?
I am a social media marketing intern, so most of the time i work with Neurogym’s social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. I get to do both the graphics, research, figuring out how to reach new customer and keeping track of the marketing data. I like the analytics part the best. I think it's interesting to see how our campaigns are doing, where our customers are and which ads that are performing the best on our social media channels.

What does a day at your internship look like and how are your working hours?
The days are quite different, some days we carpool with a colleague and then we work 7.30 am - 3 pm. When we drive by ourselves we usually work 9.30 am - 5 pm. It's nice, I like the variation. A day look very different depending on what kind of project we work with, but most of time we are on our computers working. We have our own desk so we usually sit there and work. Right now we have a big event coming up this Saturday (October 6th) so everything now is about that. It's an online event called Brain-A-Thon where the CEO John Assaraf and some other brain experts have free lectures the whole day. It's one of the biggest happening at Neurogym every year so I am happy that I get to be apart of it.

What's the best thing about doing an internship in the U.S.? 
It's the hole experience, not only you get to improve your english but you also discover a whole new way to work. We get access to new programs to work with and a chance to get new contacts on the other side of the world. It’s a chance to experiences a new working environment that you don't get in Sweden so I definitely recommend people to do this.
​
Do you like San Diego and can you describe the city?
I love San diego, I studied in Santa Barbara two years ago so I was already familiar with California when I got here, but I must say that I prefer San Diego over Santa Barbara. It's such a nice and beautiful city with a lot of various activities like going to the beach, shopping and it is really close to Los Angeles. What I like the most with San diego is the atmosphere because it’s chilled, relaxed and of course the sunsets, you could never get tired of them over here.