We definitely chose the right career

I was very nervous about heading into the ‘real’ world as an intern at Corporate Sports Australia. But I soon found that I couldn’t have scored a better placement.

Great people, great events and great experience!

The events I'm covering at my time at Corporate Sports are the Bupa Bike Hike for Asthma - WA’s largest cycling event (which involves shutting down the Kwinana Freeway for half the day), and the Perth Garden Festival, a four day festival previously known as Garden Week.

What has surprised me about my internship is that I actually get to do proper PR activities that we have been learning how to do at uni and not just the general office duties that I expected to be doing as an intern – like printing, enveloping letters, etc. 

I have been assigned with a lot of writing tasks – which, as well as design, I absolutely love because it's what I feel confident in doing, as well as enjoying to do it.

Some of the tasks I have done so far are:

• Write a press release/blog post on the transport arrangements for the Bupa Bike Hike for Asthma.
• Create content for the event websites.
• Write the content of the Perth Garden Festival email newsletter.
• Write a press release announcing the appearance of Peppa Pig at the Perth Garden Festival.
• Write four press releases announcing the Chevron City to Surf for Activ is back for 2014 in Busselton, Karratha, Albany and Geraldton.
• Create the content for the Perth Garden Festival program.
• Write human interest press releases for the Bupa Bike Hike for Asthma.

What I learnt

1. The biggest thing I have learned about the PR profession in the first days of the internship is that it is not just strictly PR that you’re doing, but a big marketing mix! It all intertwines. You are doing anything is takes to make your event a success.
2. One of the skills that you can’t prepare for is breezing between the different events you are working on with ease. I found it tricky to constantly switch between the two events but I have finally picked it up with practice!
3. A lot of people will say after their experiences in the PR work place is that PR is not glamorous and it's all a myth. With this frame of mind going into my internship I was still very blown away at the happenings around the office (e.g. filming a commercial at Channel 9 studios and amazing staff lunches at the 1907 Bar and Restaurant).

From what I have experienced so far I feel like I have ventured into the right career. It's fast paced, interesting, fun and no two days are the same.

If I can leave any advice for people yet to start their internship it would be not to worry about whether your PR skills are adequate enough, because everything you have learnt at Curtin prepares you for this – you’d be surprised how easily it comes to you.



Steph  

Stephanie Price
Events Assistant
Corporate Sports Australia 

The start of something new

Hello all!

My name is Natasha Weeks and I'm a full-time student at Curtin University in Bentley, Western Australia. This is my final semester (woo!) of my Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Marketing and Public Relations. This has certainly been an eye-opening journey for me so far. Exciting doors are opening that I want to just leap through after graduation!

I have been patiently waiting for PR393 since the start of my degree, and after two and a half years of classes, towards the end of last semester I landed an internship opportunity at Scitech WA. I began my work placement -twice a week- just under three weeks ago, so I've now completed the first quarter of my 20 day placement. I am now fairly settled into my work environment and can comfortably discuss Scitech as an organisation, as well as the activities I'm destined to be involved in during my time here. I'm really excited about working here because in all honesty, Scitech takes the cake for coolest place to work at voluntarily!

Scitech's mission statement illustrates that it is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to increase awareness, interest, capability and participation by all Western Australians in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Scitech 2013. http://www.scitech.org.au/our-mission/notices/our-mission/Page-2.html). They are West Australia's leading science education centre and offer a number of experiences for visitors of all ages and demographics. Scitech features exhibits, live shows, an in-house CSIRO lab, Australia's largest Planetarium - Horizon, as well as an extensive touring program that visits every regional and remote community across Western Australia.

As you can probably tell just from the above paragraph, there is always a lot going on at Scitech so it's a really exciting atmosphere to be a part of. My first week included a lot of getting to know the organisation, so discussing the IT Policy and the use of photo release forms (a lot of the time we work with children and schools), and reviewing the company's five year plan; their vision, key programs and financial targets which gave me a good idea of the direction the organisation was headed.  I spent a lot of time meeting all the friendly faces around the office and sat in on a couple of awesome shows with the kids (getting to know the company, I swear!). I also spent quite a lot of time on data entry for maintaining customer feedback and inputing coupons from discounts, I started during the school holidays - the busiest time for Scitech - and although the process seemed monotonous at the time, it's actually given me a great idea of how Scitech's target stakeholders - their guests - view the company.

During my second week I went behind-the-scenes of Scitech's social media and now understand the uses of HootSuite; collating all social media platforms onto one handy tool, and Mention; a communications tool used to monitor an organisations online presence by highlighting FaceBook comments, Instagram posts, websites, blogs and everything else you could possibly find on the internet with the word 'Scitech', I felt a bit like a spy!

National Science Week, Scitech's 25th Birthday and Scitech After Dark are major events coming up, so I've been doing work on draft media releases (gulp!), and archiving media clippings that date back to as early as 1988! That was extremely interesting, it brought back a few childhood memories for me as well as gave incredible insight into the history of the organisation and the contrast of events and exhibitions from then and now.

Here at Scitech there are also other projects I've begun working on - they're stories for another time :)

We learn things in class, but it really doesn't compare to getting out there in the real world and putting textbook knowledge into practice. This really is a new, exciting experience! Good luck to everyone. Though we're all in the same position, each of us will have unique experiences and I'm excited to read all about them.

Over and out!

Natasha Weeks
14853926
Bentley