For one week every fall, Reykjavik, Iceland, morphs into the live music capital of the Scandinavian world.

“The city lights up and people go crazy,” said Caitlyn Dougher, a third-year music industry major who helped organize the party.

Last semester, Dougher worked on co-op as public relations and marketing assistant for Iceland Airwaves, the city’s annual five-day music festival. She drew thousands of concertgoers from all over the world through a five-month social media campaign on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, writing clever band descriptions, designing ticket giveaway contests, and uploading pretty pictures of the city that received hundreds of Facebook “likes.”

As one of the world’s premier venues for new bands to showcase their chops, the event also attracted hundreds of talent scouts and journalists from big-name record labels and magazines like Billboard and Rolling Stone.

“Getting facts across to an international audience in a fun and pithy way is a good skill to develop,” Dougher said. “To think that I helped make this festival possible is a really cool feeling.”

Dougher reveled in a job well done with thousands of music lovers, whom she described as “rowdy but responsible.” She caught 40 of the festival’s 200 acts, including her favorite band Sigur Rós, an ambient post-rock ensemble from Reykjavik.

The experiential-learning opportunity forced Dougher to live outside of her comfort zone, she explained, and reinforced her career goal of becoming a high-ranking international relations and marketing consultant for bands and record labels. “Moving to a foreign country without knowing anyone there was nerve-racking,” she said, “but it turned out being the best experience of my life and I can’t wait to do it again.”

She won’t have to wait long. Dougher plans to do her second co-op with Trend Maze, a digital communication and web development company based in Stockholm, Sweden. “I’m creating a network for myself in Scandinavia through co-op,” Dougher said. “That’s really cool.”

Watch Caitlyn Dougher’s entry in the Coolest Co-op Video Competition.