Intern Profile: Grace Arel

My name is Grace Arel and I am a third-year undergraduate student studying abroad in Prague. My home university, Bethel University, is in St.  Paul Minnesota. This semester I am taking communication and history classes at Charles University as well as interning at Locus. During the few weeks I have been in Prague, I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Czech culture. Prague is beautiful and I love the rhythm here. I look forward to getting to know the Locus community better this semester. Here’s a little info about me.
Hometown: Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, United States
Fun Fact about Hometown: There are 11,186 lakes in Minnesota, so its nickname is “The Land of 10,000 Lakes.” Being active and enjoying nature has always been an important part of my life.
Occupation: Intern / Student
Field of Study: Relational Communication, Digital Humanities, and Graphic Design

Why did you decide to study Communication, Digital Humanities, and Graphic Design?

After graduation, I want to work in the Museum field as an exhibition designer or curator. The fields of study I chose equip me with a wide range of skills. Relational Communication examines human behavior in a practical way, while Digital Humanities and Graphic Design give me important “hard” skills to take with me into the workforce. The combination of these fields gives me a variety of options to decide what I want to do with my career.

Why did you decide to intern at Locus?

During my first visit to Locus, I was impressed with the space and the atmosphere. The members seemed very friendly. I was excited to learn that community is one of Locus’ core values- creating relationships is part of the job description! All these factors made me excited to join the team here.

What are some of your goals for this internship?

My internship goals for the semester were to intern at a creatively-minded, cross-cultural, collaboration-based organization that provides me the opportunity to jump in and do hands on designing and event planning as well as practice intercultural communication. Locus gives me the opportunity to do all of the above.

What kind of responsibilities do you have as Digital Marketing Specialist?

As the Digital Marketing Specialist, I will be developing, implementing, and managing marketing campaigns, using web analytics to measure and optimize social media, working on updating the website as well as creating a promotional video for Locus.

Did you already have an idea of what a coworking space was before you joined Locus?

I have friends who I began coworking with this last fall. My friends and I found that we are more efficient and productive when we are surrounded others who are also focused on getting stuff done. When I heard that Locus was a whole workspace dedicated to coworking, I was excited to experience coworking on a larger scale in a cross-cultural setting.

What is a fun fact about you?
As a teenager, I lived in the Amazon jungle for a month teaching English.