It is
always good to encourage students to undertake internship during their semester
break. It provides you an opportunity to jump out of the book, learn from the industry’s
expert and have a peek on the real world. I found that in the beginning you
might found it difficult to adapt to the workplace as you might feel pressure
to work with the expert who are experiences and skilled. However, don’t worry,
because you are not the only one. I believe that there are people who are also
share the same feelings with you. For example ME. However, when you go through
all of these obstacles, it will help you grow better. Working in that
environment will always trigger you to proactively in learning fresh knowledge,
execute and practice it times and times, so that it get better.
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| Thaipusam's worship routes |
During my internship
at Eastern and Oriental Hotel’s Public Relations and Communication Department,
my daily job is media clipping, online monitoring, general support and so on.
It just like what we had learnt from the university, but are more practical. Monitor
on the printed and online media is the things that need to be done by every
day. I was assigned to screen all the news, articles, and advertisement that
are relevant to the industry. For example, the government policy towards hoteliers,
the strategies of other main competitors, transportation situation on festival
seasons and others factors that might directly or indirectly influence the
hotel industry.
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| Media clipping collected during internship period |
Sometimes I
even have the opportunities to participate in media conference, inspection
activity, SWOT analysis on public relations’ program and so on. These
experiences help me to gain a boarder view on the public relations industry. I
had read and learn the words “media conference” or “media tour” from textbook
and other journal articles, but after all I realized that I can only and
actually learn it when I participate in each of the activities. From these
experiences, I learnt that theory is just a theory, but when you involve
yourself in these events you can have the chance to have a look on the real life
situation as sometimes things can happen. For example, the mismanagement in
time will cause kiosk in the media conference. From this incident, you can observe
how your colleagues manage on that kind of situation, thus in the future you
will be aware of it and gain more confidence in executing on each operation.
I’m very
appreciate to have this opportunity to learn from all the expert as it gives me
an idea on what is the roles of public relations in hotel industry and how it
works. As my supervisor told me don’t be afraid of making mistake, because you
are a trainee you have to opportunity (or rights) to make mistake. But after
that, we have to learn from the mistake, bear in mind and improve in the future.
Soah Hui
Sing
15414748
Miri
Campus
