The four to 1four60 Ratio

First of all, Welcome ladies and gentlemen to my blog! Okay, so I presume you are all wondering what my little ratio is all about. It is simply a reflection on how I feel about internship so far.

The four to 1four60 ratio can be broken down into three simple points:

•  The first ‘four’ reflects how many days I have attended my internship;

• The 1four60 is a breakdown of my 4 years studying into days – 1460 days give or take  a leap year and all that confusion;

• The sum of all it all is that I feel in my four days at HBF I have gained more ‘useful’ and practical information than I have over the course of my Public Relations and Marketing double major. Never has the term public relations become so definitive to me, it is amazing how hands on experience can just concrete every single aspect or theory ever learnt at uni!

Anyway, let's get back to basics – I commenced my internship on 5 May 2014 at HBF Head Office on Murray Street being accepted immediately into the not-for-profits sixth floor communications family. The sixth floor is a welcoming mix of public relations, communications, marketing, events and the health funds CGU and Pharmacy sector.

My little ‘family’ includes my very approachable supervisor Andrew who is head of PR at HBF, and four driven young ladies Fleur, Jodie, Chantelle and Shae, each respectively taking care of: external public relations, internal communications, social media platforms, media and communications, working extremely close together.

Within my four days, I discovered the “bread and butter” of public relations, as Fleur so simply puts it. Pivotal to public relations is real life cases as they embody compassion and interest as well as relatable content. This “bread and butter” had me tediously stalking the HBF Run for a Reason Everyday Heroes page for five solid hours, finally emerging with a mere, but rich, six possible media grabbing stories *praise the lord*. The stories were eye opening, many being about family losses due to illness, prompting gratitude for simply being granted another day in this life, but brought to attention the realities of how cut throat the media industry can be – with only truly individual, interest sparking stories making the cut.

The afternoon of my fourth day involved taking a trip with Fleur to the local gym, meeting up with Today Tonight journalist Cassie Silver to film a brief clip for the HBF Run for a Reason Ultimate Runners Playlist segment aired on Today Tonight in May just before the run. Oh my goodness, did I learn a lesson that day - did any of you know that it takes around 45 minutes to an hour to film 20 seconds worth of footage to air on Television? Crazy right? I thought so!

One area of the internship which I guess is both a negative and positive however is the timing. I work three/four days per week which means my PR experiences at HBF are limited to smaller activities able to be completed in my two internship days, that is the negative. Here is the positive: I get to experience varied tasks relating to all different activities and initiatives held at different times of the year! Either way I am just so happy that I was given this opportunity to start with!  

Until my next blog,

Have a wonderful week!

Kiara xx