When a door closes....

When a Door Closes....

Yes, as many of us are, I have finished my last day at the Department of Sport and Recreation. I have completed my time at DSR and loved it. In my time I have learnt big things like writing a ministerial press release, to something as simple as how to speak professionally on the phone. The time in my placement has been invaluable as I have learnt so much more than a classroom could ever teach me.

My last few days were just as eventful as my first day. I was responsible for completing the media monitoring as the lady who usually did it wasn’t at work. Suddenly as no one was also double checking the news, I had to make sure I picked up on everything that was relevant, it was up to me! Total responsibility was not something I was used to. This is great experience for a job because your boss will not always be looking over your shoulder to make sure you are doing everything correctly. I also was working on more news stories and e newsletters for events. Many of which still required approval and involved me calling people for quotes, all great practice for real life work.

 

That is exactly how I have been looking at this placement, a pre job. All of the small things are all helping me to be more job ready. Observing office interactions, how your boss interacts with her boss and even how they ask for help. All of this is going to help me be better at my job and make my transition from university to the real world hopefully a little bit less scary. 

As this is my last blog, the inevitable topic of highlights will be discussed. I really enjoyed the media monitoring. I loved how reading the news was work! It is something I did in my own time anyway and loved being able to go on all the news websites. I also enjoyed writing media releases and seeing them in the paper. I felt such a sense of accomplishment seeing them. The jobs in which I learnt the most from definitely had to be when I had to ring the media when a story fell through. I had to explain that the football match did not occur so there was no story, whilst being careful to not place any blame, therefore creating a story in the fact that the football match did not happen. Writing a ministerial release was also a huge learning curve as those are written in a whole different style compared to what we learnt.

Example of one of my stories in the paper

 

Link to Ministerial releases to look at how different they are written

I am disappointed that my time at DSR is over but like I said when a door closes, a window opens as whilst I was there I learnt about their graduate program which I have applied for, hopefully I get it as I loved working there! Maybe this placement will lead to more than just experience.