Internship coming to a close

Mikayla Wearne                                                                                             17081270 - Bentley

Hi Everyone!

With only a few days left here in Kuala Lumpur at GO Communications I can safely say I have learnt a lot, my idea of public relations has changed significantly and I now have a clearer idea of how PR is incorporated in the real world.

Since the “Open House Hari Raya Celebration” that I help organised and attended at the end of my second week I have been very busy in the office doing a number of different tasks for GO. My first task after the event was to keep an eye out for any media mentions of the Hari Raya event online and offline. I found multiple mentions and articles from two major publications, Metros Events and The Star, finding sentences I had wrote in print and online was a really great feeling!

I started working on documents for the next event that was coming up; the event was to education children and their parents on the importance of a healthy, balance diet for young ones through incorporating more fruits and vegetables into their diet. I wrote out the media release which was incorporated into a media invite and sent out to all of the main media outlets here in Malaysia. The next day I followed these up and called the media outlets to make sure they had all received the invitations.

As our client, Seven Seas, a vitamin supplement company, was inviting a professional cook to the event to demonstrate some of her recopies, they requested that we write up a release agreement stating that Seven Seas could use three of the cooks’ recipes for promotional purposes. This job was handed onto me; I was quite surprised at this as it seemed like something for someone with a background in law. I had never written a release agreement and had no idea where to start, I googled a lot and managed to find some examples. From there I drafted out the release agreement and handed it on, I was later told I was pretty spot on which was great to hear.

At the event I helped set up and handed out the media goodie bags as they came through the door, included in the bag was the media release I had written. 

I was able to watch the demonstrations and see the kids get involved in the cooking process which was great, the whole environment had a really good vibe and I’m sure the children had a blast!

My next post will be about what I did in my final week and  my overall experience with GO so stay tuned! Thanks for reading!

Mikayla

All good things come to an end

This week was my last week as an intern at Evolve Events and what an experience it has been!

There is an endless of things that I am taking away with me from these 20 days, things that I have learnt about myself, learnt about the industries and learnt about my future. 

Here’s a list of some of those that I think a lot of interns can relate to and agree with:

o   Working in the industries of public relations and event management is no predictable journey. In fact, judging by my experience with Evolve Events I can guarantee that every day in my future in these industries will be entirely different and that is where the fun is!

o   I am not made for a desk job – I need to be out in the field! I have been fortunate enough to learn this during my internship and not after getting a proper job, so thank you Networking WA for teaching me this!

o   University cannot teach you everything you need to know but an internship can certainly lead the way. I am grateful for having the opportunity to complete an internship at a company of dual nature – public relations and events management – providing me with hands on experience in both industries.

o   Public relations and event management are complements to each other. These two industries can be independent, or combined to produce some amazing results. Chances are if you’re working in one industry you will cross over to the other somewhere along you journeys. Pretty happy to say I have a future in both of the industries!

o   Communication and being proactive is key! If anyone thinks that from a public relations degree they will be able to sit around and be spoon fed, that is absolutely not the case. If you want to be good and what you do and successful in the industry you need to go and there and get yourself known; the more people that know you, the higher the chance of them liking you (how can they like you if they don’t know you?!)

o   Be willing to go the extra mile. Again, you need to step out of your comfort zone. I certainly did that working at the Greens WA event where everyone knew everyone and I was the outsider, ‘the student’, but I learnt a lot, I made new friends and by the end of the weekend I felt pretty much a part of everyone!

o   Don’t settle if you feel like you can do better or improve. My first company was not my best choice – not because it didn’t teach me anything because it definitely did, but because I felt like there would be another place that could teach me more about the work I was more passionate about, and there absolutely was.

So there you have guys, the shortened version of what I have learnt. I sure everyone will walk away from their internships with a list a lot longer than that one and I am positive that this internship experience has given us the once in a lifetime opportunities to work with people in great positions, giving us life long memories and invaluable wisdom for our future as Public Relation officers and Event Managers.

Reyhan Oz

16167111 – Bentley Campus