It's all about perspective.

Cliche's aside, I really have found that working as an intern has the opportunity to provide the most incredible opportunities. Even though you're not being paid, and sometimes it may feel like you're doing monotonous work, it introduces you to a lot of new things, and even the smallest of jobs develop skills and career scope.

Last week was the end of my placement at Scitech and I finished my final day with an incredible, eye-opening networking opportunity, as well as an offer to continue my internship! In a matter of hours I felt both inspired, acknowledged and appreciated. I feel incredibly lucky to have landed an internship at such a fun, dynamic and inspirational organisation. My supervisors have been my mentors, and have week in, week out, put in extra effort to make sure I was given projects that would both challenge and educate me in my professional career.

After sitting down for coffee with one of my supervisors, I came to realise how much I have truly learnt and been exposed to through my connection with Scitech. What I have learnt through school, I have had the opportunity to implement in a professional work environment. I have also developed invaluable connections with people and organisations in the field of communications, and have been provided with insight from my supervisors/mentors of recommendations for how to get to my dream career.

Working in a not-for-profit organisation has allowed me to dabble and develop my skills in a number of communications and public relations areas, an opportunity I may not have been given working in a larger/different company or organisation with a bigger communications team. At Scitech, it's a close-knit group who each work on all communications efforts both individually and quite often collaboratively; a great place to be exposed to pretty much everything!

Working for Scitech has provided me with a number of networking opportunities I didn't even realise were possible prior to my internship. I've mingled with representatives from a number of sponsors including (but not limited to), Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, and also, DISNEY (which was a pretty big deal for me)!

Long story short, I've accepted my offer to continue working for Scitech, and will do so till the end of semester before my part-time job gets busy in the lead up to Christmas sales. I've already been given challenging tasks, one of them being relieving a supervisor while she takes three weeks annual leave. Of course, being that I'm only there twice a week I'm not required to keep on top of all of her work (it has been shared between myself and another supervisor), but I've still been given some pretty big shoes to -temporarily- fill, and it's a great feeling, knowing that the team trusts me to get the job done. I'm looking forward to seeing what else is in store from now until the end.

So all-in-all, a very successful personal and professional experience that I'm hoping will positively influence my future endeavours! For those of you who have also completed your internships, I hope it was equally as rewarding, and for those part-way through, these are just some of the things you have to look forward to :) Like the title of my blog says, although you may be given small, seemingly insignificant jobs to begin with, it all adds to the bigger picture and is testament to your character for getting those jobs done. It's all about perspective, everyone has to start somewhere.

I've actually really enjoyed reading about everyones experiences, and look forward to hearing about many more!

Natasha Weeks
Bentley
14853926