Sophia Celentano is studying at the University of Virginia, temporarily living with her parents in Charleston, South Carolina, and is currently doing an internship at a company in Parsippany, New Jersey. She only has to go to the office one day a week, otherwise she can work from home.
Instead of moving to the company’s location, the 21-year-old has decided on a special way of commuting: she flies there and back weekly, a flight takes two hours – the way between her home and the airport or airport and office is not included yet. Nevertheless, the model offers many advantages, says Celentano – especially financially. By saving the rent, she would get about $2,000 cheaper on flights during her ten-week internship, she calculated in a TikTok video.
Her clip went viral, and since then Celentano has received a lot of feedback. Not everyone understood their way of commuting. Some accused the student (and young people in general) of being too demanding. However, her decision has nothing to do with that, Sophia Celentano clarifies in a guest article for CNN, in which she defends her way to the internship by plane.
Commuting by plane is not a privilege, writes Celentano, but “an innovative solution for a housing market that is unaffordable for many of us”. Renting an apartment locally is significantly more expensive than the plane tickets. She also gains a lot of freedom: she can spend time with her family, traveling is an important experience for her and the air miles she now accumulates can be used after her studies. For Celentano, all of this sounds much more sensible than investing their internship pay in rent.
She sees her situation as exemplary for the challenges of her generation, which is suffering severely from the increased cost of living. “It may seem crazy to take a plane to work, but in the context of today’s job and housing market it seems a lot less extreme,” explains the American.
She vehemently defends herself against allegations that young people make too high demands – especially when it comes to employers. “My generation needs to get creative to navigate today’s complicated world,” Celentano claims. Her story is therefore not only about her own decisions, but also “about the challenges that my peers and I experience when we enter the world of work”. However, Sophia Celentano is also aware of the limits of her commuter model: In view of the high environmental impact, she would not have decided to fly if her internship had lasted longer than ten weeks.
Sources: Sophia Celentano on TikTok / Sophia Celentano on LinkedIn / CNN
