I think by now, most of us would have completed at least half of our internships. For me, I have learnt and realised more things as my own internship progressed. One of them is that not one internship is going to be the same as others'.
This realisation stemmed from a discussion that we had during the PR Internship Report Writing Workshop, and some of my fellow classmates were saying how their internships were going nothing like how they expected it to be. Here are some different accounts:
"All I'm doing is fetching coffee, photocopying things, and filing papers!"
"My supervisor is barely in the office, so she usually just dumps some tasks on me that I get done in like, an hour, then for the other 4 hours I'm sitting there doing nothing."
"My supervisor's really slack. He just gives me something to do, but doesn't come back to check on my task."
"My internship's going really well. I've been given the task of overseeing their social media page, and I've been creating photos, slogans and all that. This feels like real PR stuff you would have to do."
I've interned another a company before, and unlike my current organisation, this company was an entertainment company. What this means is that they managed different artistes such as singers, actors, event hosts, and comedians that were signed under them. The company also had another main aspect: event organising and managing. For me, I was under their marketing department.
Like anyone else on their first internship, I expected that I would be doing "great" and realistic things. However, I still remember on my first day that I spent the first half of the day just going through the company's profiles of their artists, and spent the second half of the day sorting out old files. I know, really "great" things. My supervisor, a young lady herself, had just been promoted to the head of the department due to the previous department head suddenly departing. This meant that my supervisor, the new department head, still relatively inexperienced, was left with the task of looking after 1 worker, and 1 intern.
All in all, my first internship wasn't that bad. I did learn various things, such as how to send out a company update everyday, create posters, edit pictures, engage our artistes to improve the view and like count on our social media platforms, and more. A bonus plus is that I got to meet many locally-famous actors and singers!
Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, my 2 supervisors are very different to the previous company's supervisor in terms of their leadership style, and how they manage those under them. I won't go into details, but it really is about the trust you give, and your attitude towards learning.
I like to think that my internship's going well too, despite the lack of sleep (haha). Although my internship is more project-based (ie only focusing on 1 specific task - the website), I feel that I'm still learning a lot. Just like my title says, not on internship is the same. We've all already begun our internships, and be it mundane tasks or not, the only thing we can do now is look towards the end of it, and make the most of what we can.
See you next time!
1 comment:
I must admit that when i first started my internship I was worried that it would be one of those bad experiences where all you do is fetch coffees, or clean files.
I was pleasantly surprised to not have that. Instead I've been given a really hands on internship so far. Researching for my project & also collaborating with the other interns on their project. Using skills learnt in classes about benchmarking and recommendations that have helped me to make some positive changes in the workplace. Also using some creative skills we practised in Transmedia to make content for a variety of platforms with a common theme or message.
You never know what an internship or work experience will be like until it actually happens and everyone's experiences are SOO different based on the area of PR we're in and the type of organisation.
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