Goodbye for now and Good luck!

 My final week has been the saddest, busiest and most challenging week by far. In my last blog I expressed my third interning week to be my busiest but boy was I wrong. During my final week I was working really busy hours with two days starting as early as 7am and finishing at 5pm. Although these hours were long, I was enjoying every minute of the work I was involved in.

During my busy last week, I had some highlights of helping with filming for a client promo video, calling a clients cause partners for an upcoming opportunity and I met a client which I had spent the last 3 weeks liaising with on the phone. It was so nice to put a face to a voice and be able build that relationship on a more personal level. This week I also had to hand the reins back over on one project that I was involved with from the beginning. After four weeks of being involved, it was very sad to know you have no more involvement in this project, a project which felt like my baby.

Four weeks interning is a long/quick time. It's long enough to feel like you are apart of the team, to fit in and become more then just colleagues but friends with your co-workers. At the end of the 4 weeks I didn't realize how sad I would be to say good-bye, it was lovely to know the feeling was mutual. On my last day everyone said usually with interns we just say goodbye, but this time it was sad as they said they felt like I was an actual employee there. This was a nice feeling to know you ended up really fitting in and will be remembered once leaving. 

On your last day of interning it is mandatory that the intern bring in something sweet to share with everyone. I had recommendations that chocolate is always a winner and brownies were the best. So you guessed it, I made chocolate brownies. However being the terrible cook I am, I ended up burning the first batch at 7pm on the Thursday night, lucky for me it was late night shopping so I was able to run to the shop to buy more ingredients. Thankfully they were a major hit at my internship placement, so it made the late night dash to the shops worth it.

One week after my internship had finished, I received an email from the HR manager inviting me out for lunch with herself and the director of the consultancy. I was over the moon to be invited back; they said they had never taken an intern out for lunch before so I felt very privileged. They thanked me for my efforts and said that although there are no positions available at the moment, the possibilities of the future are unknown. After the four weeks I definitely know that I would love to venture into consultancy when I graduate and I can’t imagine working in any other consultancy than this one. It’s definitely the ultimate dream, so fingers crossed when I graduate there is an opening and I make it on the list of candidates.

For now its goodbye and good luck with all of your internships! I promise interning is the best most invaluable experience that I am sure each and every one of you will love. I know I sure did.

Chelsea J

The variety in consultancy

Week three has been my busiest week so far. This week was the Australian Oil and Gas conference/exhibition, which my internship workplace was managing the media room. Personally I had no knowledge in the oil and gas industry, it was never something that I had studied or followed. However when asked if I wanted to come along and experience it, I said yes wanting to get as much experience in different fields as I could. Now that the conference is over, I can honestly say it was one of the best experiences I have had and I really enjoyed it.

The conference was very interesting, I got the opportunity to network with some great people who work in different fields, listen to talks by companies such as Woodside and Chevron and participated in the AOG Women expo. I met some great journalists who offered me advice on the PR/journalism world, helped with interviewing/filming of the expo and also helped curate the @AOG_expo twitter feed with one of my colleagues. I was asked to be the barrel girl with one of our competitions and also be filmed walking through the expo for some promo footage. It was an experience that I really enjoyed and I am very grateful for the opportunity. 

To finish of the week after 2 and half days at the AOG expo, I was back in the office interviewing clients’ team members and also writing pitch stories to the media for clients. The weeks are full of variety and there aren't enough hours in the day to fit in all in, but I absolutely love it!

Chelsea x

You win some, you lose some...

My second week stated off on a great note. On Monday morning the boss for the organisation I intern for hand delivered me a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a thank you note. This was for helping out with an after hours networking event the organisations alumni held at work last Friday night. I jumped in to help with serving and greeting the members when they arrived without being asked. I was over the moon with the flowers, they made me feel very important and appreciated by my internship organisation. 

The week continued to get better when I had the opportunity to attend a photo shoot and launch event for a great cause. One of our major clients is the biggest sponsor for this cause which helps homeless people. Being asked to tag along was an amazing experience as I had the opportunity to meet some great people who live on the streets, journalists, volunteers and photographers.

The day was a great success for the cause however despite all our efforts with organizing the journalist for the day, our client who is the major sponsor didn’t end up getting a mention in the article. It was a let down feeling when you spend so much time and effort organizing the journalist to not be mentioned in the article. This became a quick lesson in realizing journalist publish what they want to publish, no matter how much effort you put in to get your clients efforts publicized.

It was still a great experience and with everyday, a new and exciting challenge happening I cant wait to see what the next week brings.

Chelsea :)