Thursday, November 3, 2016

All’s Well That Ends Well

As I write this blog I can’t help but be with mixed emotions. I am happy as this is the last time I will have to do an assignment well until my masters that is, nervous as I do not know what is ahead for me and sad because I have to leave the people at my internship who I have built relationships with.

This week in my Public Relations Planning and Evaluation class we had a debrief session. Veronica explained that everyone must go through a debriefing session after a set of goals have been achieved.

My goal for this internship unit was to do the best of my ability and of course to produce work that will get me a High Distinction. 

To go through a debrief session one must answer the following questions:
1.      What was done well?
The communication between staff and students was excellent. I learnt so much on the importance of having effective communication in an organisation. The feedback from my target audience (in this case being international students) was satisfying. It is an excellent feeling when you get positive or even constructive feedback about your work. It helped me as a person know my strengths in which I should implement in my everyday life and also my weaknesses in which I have learned from and can make improvements.

2.      What was done badly?
Once again my time management skills. Getting closer to the semester it was hard to manage my internship, work, assignments and our PR internship report. I am a person who procrastinating is my middle name. I always left my assignment to the last minute which was hard because all of the assignments were all due at the same time. I am so thankful that I did not need to ask for an extension in any of my assignments, however I still need to improve on my time management skills before entering the workforce.

3.      What took more time than expected?
Creation of posters and language barriers. I am not the most creative person, actually my creativity skills are really low and therefore I would always avoid work that made me tap into my creative side. This internship has made me realize that with creativity it takes time; if you want perfect creative work you should start early as it takes time. When I took my time with I found that the end result was perfect and there was no need to make any more changes.
Having to deal with students who English is not their first language was rather hard. In the beginning I used complex English words when communicating with them, but as I got to understand my target audience I started using simpler English. It is important to know how to communicate with target audience, failure to do so could result in miss-communication.
  
4.      What was the riskiest thing I’ve done?
PROCRASTINATION. Like I told you before my procrastination skills are on point, if medals were to be given to the best procrastinator I would receive a gold medal. I experienced my worst procrastination yet this semester. I had to take some time off my internship so that I may get some work done. I really wish I didn’t have to do that but if I didn’t I would not have gotten any work done. During the time off I missed out on a lot of learning opportunities and a chance to enhance my skills even further. 
  
5.      If I had unlimited resources what would I have done better?
I would practice more on my creative skills as well as find ways to help me improve my time management skills.

I am so happy that PR students have to take an internship unit before graduating. This unit has enhanced my creativity skills as well as my other PR skills besides Events Management.  

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