Before I started writing this blog post, I listened to the week one podcast for this unit. One thing that was pertinent to me was the section about the importance of developing a thick-skin before entering this industry. Personally, I’ve always hated criticism and I used to take it to heart. However, through working and getting feedback on my university assignments I’ve learnt to see constructive criticism as an opportunity rather than as something negative.

For me, the whole reason for going to university and undertaking internships is so I can learn the best way to do things. If I already knew everything, I’d be running my own company, not interning for someone else. Whenever I get a piece of writing back that has changes or edits on it, I make sure I read over the new version carefully so I can understand why it’s better to write it this way. If I’m not sure about something, I’ll ask questions.

At the beginning of my internship, one of the most challenging things was adapting my writing style to suit each client. At the consultancy, I’m interning with we often write as the client, so we can’t have differing styles — our writing must be uniform. Getting used to this was tricky but I used it as an opportunity to improve my writing and learn to adapt it. After all, this is another thing that’s just part of the public relations industry. I started off by reading previous blogs, articles and social media posts so I had an idea of what content to include and how to write it. But you can only do so much research before it becomes procrastination. Soon, I just had to start writing.

I got positive feedback from my first ever blog post, which helped boost my confidence. Yes, there were changes made by my supervisor, but she wasn’t being malicious or telling me I was a terrible writer — she was teaching me. Now I’m just over halfway through my internship, and while there are often still changes made to my writing, it’s encouraging to see that there are less and less.

Along with having a thick-skin, I think it’s also important to know how to speak up. While undertaking your internship, you’ve got the opportunity to use your supervisor as a mentor. They’re not a mind-reader, so if you want to develop a certain skill or try something you think you’re good at, make sure you ask them. For me, I’ve always seen writing as a strength, and it also happens to be one of my supervisor’s favourite things. I told her this when I first started and since then she’s worked with me to help me improve this skill even further, which is why I like getting constructive feedback. Because of this, most of my tasks revolve around some form of writing (whether it be blogging, writing for a newsletter, media releases, social media or something else).  I wasn’t particularly confident with social media, so I’ve been given the opportunity to practice writing for it and I’ve learnt a lot.

The main thing I’ve taken away from interning is to see everything as an opportunity and use them to your advantage. No matter what your position is or where you work, there are always going to be tasks that you don’t enjoy doing, but they need to be done. I really believe it’s important to try and see the learning opportunity in every task and use your supervisor as a mentor to help you grow your skillset. I’m not going to learn everything overnight —it takes time to develop skills and resilience. After all, hard wood grows slowly.