One door closes, another opens – departing my placement
What a wild ride it has been. I am finally at the end of my internship. Two months ago, I started as a clueless, inexperienced undergraduate student. Now I’m departing from my internship as a not so clueless with a small handful of experience graduating student.
To say that I have learnt from my internship would be an understatement. Instead it felt like I had just discovered the tip of the iceberg, with so much more for me to learn and explore.
I was given tasks that I didn’t even know belonged under the PR umbrella. For example, Incite Solutions has a corporate volunteering program where their employees can take one day off work to engage in volunteering activities of their choice. One of my tasks was to research, contact and source volunteering opportunities that are engaging for the staff or relates to their profession/industry.
The table below provided a quick snapshot of my major task scope.
My placement experience further reinforced the flexibility and range of activities that belong under the PR scope. There is no one size fits all, how PR is practiced from company to company differs. That’s the mystery of the profession; there always seems to be something that can be explored.
I remember my supervisor told me earlier on in my placement:
“You know how to write a media release but it’s’ going to be different every single time”
She was right, we are going to be using the same writing skills to write a media release. But the content would differ depending on the organisation and the topic. Its’ all about honing your skills so you can adapt them to any subject! Similar to a knife that is consistenly sharpened to deliver precise cuts everytime.
The most rewarding part about my placement was seeing the results or impact of the work I do. Such as the flyer that I designed was printed and used during the event launch. The drafts that I have written for the company website portal is now publicly accessible, view it here!. It sounds kind of crazy, but the placement legitimises the PR profession to me. Of course, before my placement started, I know what a PR professional does. But after undergoing this internship, I now have a concrete, solid understanding of the varied tasks of a PR profession. Yes, we write media releases, yes, we do social media marketing. But it is so much more than that. Every task that we undertake can be watered down to its essence. Public Relations. Managing the relations between the organisation and its’ internal and external public.
Besides enriching my knowledge about the PR profession, this placement opportunity also provided me a taster of what job searching will be like. From searching for my own placement opportunities, writing my own cover letters and resume, contacting the recruitment persons, and attending the interview. Frankly the process was daunting to me. But I’ve been through it, and I’ve done it. Looking back, it provided me with the boost of confidence and experience I now need as a graduate who is starting her job searching journey soon.
Now that one door of opportunity has closed, I can’t wait to find the next one that opens.
Hindsight in 2021
If you’re confused about the title, let me explain. The saying is generally, ‘Hindsight is 2020’, but the reason the title is ‘Hindsight in 2021’ is a marvelous play on words. Essentially, I did my internship in 2021, and this blog is a way for me to look back at my experience in hindsight. Get it? Well I hope you do.
Anyways, after a few days removed from the last day of my internship, I started to look back at the time differently. I originally came out of it very exhausted mentally and physically. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realize how my internship was in many ways easier than others.
The main culprit of that is the fact that I had to complete my internship at home. Here’s how my day would look like on a Monday during my internship. I would wake up at 7:00 am in the morning and I start prepping for my day. Showering and getting some breakfast. Then I would go back to my room to turn on my computer at 8:00 am on the dot to clock in for my internship. On Mondays, I didn’t have any classes scheduled so I would have been on my desk with my laptop the whole day until I had to clock out at 4:00 pm, with an hour lunch break between 12:00 and 1:00 pm.
Though some days were tougher with classes I had to attend and assignments to complete, I think I had a more relaxed experience than I would have had I been interning physically at an office. This made me realize that even though I thought that my internship was a good reflection of how my life would be when I start working, it is more likely that I will be dealing with a lot more hurdles working at an office rather than working from home.
This scared be because it means that my work life in the future could be tougher than what I had experienced in my internship this year. However, the internship did show me that I was able to go through hardships and still be professional and complete my work. So I will be looking forward to all the challenges that lie ahead for me, because I know I can get through it.
Bittersweet Ending
The conclusion of my internship was a bittersweet one. A part of me wanted to continue past the two months initially agreed, but a different part of me was glad it was over. I learned a lot throughout my internship, with regards to writing, graphic designing and communicating. I believe that the person that came into the internship, came out a better version on the other side.
My supervisors have been very helpful to me and the other interns throughout the internship. Not once did they ever leave me or the other interns hanging, and they were always quick to respond whenever we had doubts.
This semester was a tough one for me for many different reasons, with my family going through hardship, my studies and the internship, they all contributed to one of the toughest semesters I have ever experienced. Despite all of that, I believe that the internship was one experience that I am thankful for and that I think could help me in my future endeavors, especially in my career.
Overall, the internship was a positive experience for me. It taught me how to carry myself as a professional and it taught me the amount of effort it takes to be successful in Public Relations. I know there will be ups and downs in my future, but I’m ready to go into it with a positive attitude.
I Pulled Off An Actual Event…….. Woah
We did it!!!
Tronox Kwinana’s 2021 Family Open Day was a huge success. Not without a few bumps or jolts along the way, but the actual event went amazingly.
Let’s start with two days before the Open Day.
Just as we were about to leave work for the day, one of my superiors received an email from one of the two coffee vans we had hired months ago for this event. The coffee van was just confirming with us their power needs, a need we had never heard of up to this point. Tronox had just installed new electrical outlets in the space we would be using for our food vendors, as our caterers had told us exactly what they required months ago. The issue was that the number of Amps required by the coffee van is different to that needed by the caterers. Neither my superior or I have any idea about how Amps work, or anything electrical/power based, so we had to try and find someone still left in the building who could help us. Luckily, our safety officer who seems to know everything about anything was still in his office (just!)
Here’s when our hearts started to race: apparently a machine is needed to safely convert the Amps we provided into the correct voltage required for the coffee van. Who knew? Not us, that’s for sure *laugh emoji*. After our safety officer superhero made a couple of calls, he managed to find one of these machines on site and we were able to use that for the day. Thank goodness!
The whole debacle only lasted about half an hour but in our minds at the time, it was the biggest thing ever and it seemed to take forever to solve.
Looking back, yes we probably should have asked the coffee van earlier if they needed access to power, but we just didn’t think that they would as we had seen this particular van run on a generator at parks and other locations without power before. After we really thought about it though, we realised that they could probably only use their generator for short amounts of time, where as we required the van to be in use for over 5 hours at our Open Day. At least now I’ve learnt from this experience, and I won’t ever expect a vendor to just tell me what they require when booking them for an event, I will now ALWAYS ask them specifically to avoid this situation from happening ever again. At the end of the day, that’s what these learning experiences are for, to make mistakes and learn from them so that we know not to repeat these mistakes again in our career (if we can help it!)
THE MORNING OF OUR OPEN DAY
I arrived on site ready for a 7:00am start in preparation for our 10:00am event start time. I had already put together 58 paper lanterns the day before and picked up two car loads of inflated balloons and small balloon garlands, but I knew we still had so much to do. All of our signs and new informative displays had been set up and looked amazing, but we needed to blow up all 100 of our individual balloons with the helium tank that I hired, we needed to hang all of our lanterns, get all of the tables set up for both food and our activity stations and be ready to meet all of our vendors and partners that were coming to site. The party hire company we went with arrived at 8am to set up our stage and drop off more tables and chairs for us, and by 9am the catering company, coffee vans, photo booth and ice cream truck had arrived as well as our community partners the AFLW Dockers, Rockingham Flames, Perth Zoo and Western Shield. We had to make sure that everyone was on site, including the buses who would be conducting our site tours throughout the day, were on site at least half an hour before any of our attendees were due to arrive as there is only one shared access in and out of the plant, so we didn’t want buses and vans driving around while people were arriving.
The actual event went off perfectly, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Everyone seemed to be having fun, the science demonstration and activities with our community sponsors were a big hit with all of the children and the adults all looked relaxed and well fed! There definitely turned out to be a great festival vibe which is what the brief I was given was, there were bright and colourful lanterns hanging everywhere, music flowing through the speakers, and the caterers did a great job at creating the illusion of different food stalls down the laneway they were placed in. I have already received so many compliments and amazing feedback from both Tronox employees and their families, so I feel both relieved that the event is over with and ran smoothly, and proud that I was able to create something as grand scale as this Family Open Day and to such a success that it was.
Now that my whole internship experience is over, the Open Day was actually my day with Tronox I do feel a bit sad about it ending but I feel so much more ready and prepared to enter the workforce than I did three months ago. I finally feel that I have experience in so many areas of both Public Relations and Event Management which I definitely didn’t have before, and with this experience came a confidence that I do know enough to succeed in the real world and that I am actually capable of pulling off large tasks and events that I previously didn’t think that I could. I am so grateful for Tronox and all of its employees for this experience, but I am also grateful to Bridget and this Reflective Practice unit. This has definitely been the most beneficial unit I’ve completed in my degree, and to anyone about to start their internship journey I say good luck, but also remember to enjoy it! I definitely have.
Nostalgia for the present
The end of my time at Silver Lining & Co is more than just the end of my work placement. It also coincides with the end of my degree. So, I’ve chosen to reflect not just on the end of my internship, but the end of this short (yet somehow long) chapter of my life.
I fell into an industry I love by pure chance. While I’m not moving towards a career in public relations, I’ll always be grateful for the things I learned along the way, and the mentors who’ve guided me oh-so-gently through it all. I’ve learned the responsibility of people in communications. I’ve learned about the impact it can have on the world. I’ve grown not only as a communicator and a storyteller, but as a person.
I’m now working as a journalist, and while this degree and this unit may have been tailored towards people seeking to work in public relations, I trust that everything I’ve learned will play a role. I’ll carry the lessons I’ve learned regardless of where I go.
I may be graduating at the end of this year, but I’ll always be a student. I’ll always feel drawn towards learning how I can better tell stories about things that matter.
This year has been the most transformative year of my life, and although it isn’t over just yet, I’m already looking back with nostalgia and a sense of longing. It’s an age old adage, but we really don’t appreciate the things we have, while we have them.
Thank you to Cassie for taking me on as your intern this semester.
Thank you to my tutors for putting up with me.
Thank you to everyone for playing even just a small part in helping me grow into the person I am.
I’m glad it’s coming to an end, and I’m excited for what’s to come. But I’ll always miss this time of my life.
Until next time,
Cason
When One Chapter Ends, Another One Begins
My eight weeks long internship has finally come to an end. As I embarked on my last week of internship with Agregory PR, I have taken a stroll down memory lane and recalled the first meeting that I had with my supervisor. I remembered feeling really nervous as my brain absorbed several new and unfamiliar terms such as listicles and lead generation where I was thinking about whether I would be able to survive for the next eight weeks. To be honest, there were times when I wondered whether this was the right field for me due to the amount of pressure, workload and deadlines that I had to manage but it was just a matter of time before I saw the fruits of my work and gained the confidence that I needed. It is unimaginable how time has passed by very quickly and before you know it, I was already on my last day of internship.
It has been an incredible journey and I have learnt a lot despite working from home. If I could list all the tasks which I did throughout my internship, I think I would be able to publish a book!
Well, it was just like any other day. Everyone did their work as usual. My colleagues and I were asked to say a few words about our time with the company. We all enjoyed our work as the work day was coming to an end. It felt bittersweet, however, I was looking forward to my life after this internship now that I am equipped with the new knowledge and experience that I have gained with.
Here’s some final thoughts on my internship experience:
1) How to make your every day or working life more fun and interesting is really up to you to decide. A positive attitude could be great to start with!
2) Invest in positive relationships at work to create more meaning. Encourage each other constantly and be honest or transparent while not losing professionality is the key. I valued my colleagues and understood the importance of nurturing bonds with my colleagues. Not only it benefits your career in the future but also expands your network!
Overall, I am blessed beyond measure to have the opportunity to do my internship with Agregory PR as it has fuelled my knowledge and passion for the Public Relations industry which would not have been possible if it were not for this Reflective Practice unit. Before I worked with Agregory PR, I came in with nothing but now, I can humbly say that I left with so much. I would like to thank my lecturer, Dr. Adamu and my unit coordinator, Dr. Bridget for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which has become one of the major highlights of my degree life.
That is all from me. I hope everyone enjoyed their internships as much as I enjoyed mine and never stop learning everyday!
Am I ready for a graduate role?
I always wondered how I would feel once I reached the end of my degree. It’s as if my past self thought I would be a completely different individual in the future, with an entirely new skillset, and to a large extent this is true – but it’s definitely not what I thought it would be.
I can say with 100% confidence that it is entirely up to you how you spend your years at university. Did you apply yourself as much as you could have? Were you involved in any extra curricular activities within the university? Did you take on any extra internships or volunteer roles? What about a part-time job? How did you juggle this with your hobbies, family and social life? Everyone’s answers to these questions will be different, and that’s great because there are no right or wrong answers. We are all on our own individual journeys and you cannot compare yours to anyone else’s.
As I was nearing the end of my internship at Gilligan Group, I started to wonder. What’s next for me? What has this experience taught me in terms of what areas I enjoyed and what areas I need more practice in. Should I be feeling the pressure of getting a graduate role as soon as possible? What if I miss out?
Throughout the internship I realised that moving forward, I love to converse with team members and clients, I’ve started to really enjoy writing blog posts, and I want to gain more experience in other industries outside of the mining and construction world. That alone, gives me a solid push into the future for what roles I should be seeking and I will continue to build on this.
I reminded myself quickly that everyone’s experience would have been different to my own, and to not get disheartened if I don’t have a lot of luck straight away. This got me thinking – I have so much more to learn, and I am so excited about that. As a result, I started looking for more industry internships as well as graduate roles because like I mentioned before, there are no right or wrong pathways.
I have since acquired another internship at a public relations agency, which will take me to the end of 2021. I am excited for this experience so I can continue to gain knowledge in the world of public relations, learn from industry professionals and work collectively in a team environment. This agency has a large list of clients from various consumer-based industries, and differs very much from my internship I just completed.
I hope this gives me more clarification on future graduate roles that I can apply for, in terms of what I’m looking for and where my strengths lie. If it wasn’t for my reflective practice internship that I undertook this semester, I would not have had the level of confidence to apply for future roles and back myself and my ability. This experience has well and truly opened up many doors for me moving forward and I am confident that I will continue to gain industry experience.
Writing about something you know nothing about
I’m guessing you all remember in English class when you had to write an essay analysing a photo, a book or poem and it’s outside your area of expertise. Writing about a topic that you aren’t necessarily interested in is never an easy ask, and there are many pauses of procrastination until you’re able to complete the task. My internship is at Gilligan Group involved many tasks just like this, however it was great to be challenged and see how far I was able to push my writing skills.
A large portion of Gilligan Group’s client base are mining service companies, and this comes with editing/creating their website page and content, sending mail out campaigns to their customers etc. To have the ability to do these jobs, we need to have at least a general understanding of what the company is, what they offer, who their clients are, and where they’re wanting to take their business for the future.
The world of mining is no doubt an area that I have very basic knowledge on, and that’s why when I was assigned the task to write content for a client’s website product page, I had a brief burst of panic run through me. All you guys need to know is that I had no idea what the product I was writing about even was, and why our client’s product was better than their competitors. I thought to myself, how does the client expect me to write about their products that I know nothing about and it will be plastered on their website for their customers to see? Wouldn’t they do a better job than me because they work in the field?
I was given a brief that told me to spend a bit of time conducting general research in order for me to get a basic understanding of what I was about to write about. I googled photos of the product, general definitions, viewed the competitor’s pages for that product, viewed the client’s website structure for their other products, conducted key-word researches and more. This research process on it’s own took me at least an hour and a half, and even then you definitely couldn’t call me an expert.
This was 100% the most challenging job I was given throughout my internship because it involved a lot of gathering and combining of my research, and a massive amount of attention to detail. I realised after my research and chatting with the Gilligan Group team, that the client didn’t want me to talk about the specifics and technicalities of their product. They wanted me to explain it in layman’s terms to their customers, add a PR twist, and utilise key words that would bump their website page to the top of the Google search.
After keeping my head down, and focussing hard for a couple of hours, my draft of the client’s website product page was complete. I felt a sense of relief rush over me and almost couldn’t believe that I had just written 600 words on a product that I still know near to nothing about. I was quietly proud of myself that I had just completed something that I would have doubted myself on just a few weeks before.
My main take-away from this job is that while some tasks might seem intimidating at first glance, you will never know what you’re capable of unless you try. Knuckle down, focus and plan out how you can make it happen, and don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion of how you can make it the best it can be.
How To Fix a Mid-Internship Crisis:
I’m nearing the end of my placement with DFES and I feel I am having a bit of an over-mid-way-internship crisis!
I’m about 16 days in and I have so far done so many amazing things from making promotional material that’s been uploaded onto the DFES Intranet and volunteer hub, organised venue site visits, welcome to countries and created internal and external comms for the upcoming 2021 DFES Youth Program Awards.
Throughout the first few weeks It was full steam ahead I had so many tasks and I smashed them out each day, I truly was on a roll.
Yet now we have hit a slow point in our progress of planning for the event.
My main objective of this internship was to assist my supervisor with the Awards Evening that is coming up in March next year (2022). As the event is still about 5 months away at this stage there is not so much more for me to complete, I have pretty much finished everything that can be done at this point.
Nominations close mid-November, so we are still awaiting many of the entries for the awards. This means that things like table seating charts cannot be organised and presentation speeches cannot be written as we are not fully aware of who is attending the awards and who is going to win.
Don’t get me wrong there is still stacks to do, just not until closer to the event.
This has left me fiddling around at times, plodding away on what seem like useless tasks like searching for photographs or looking for the millionth time on Pinterest for a suitable centrepiece. By not having super important jobs or a full day of tasks to complete I have begun to feel slightly discouraged, bored, unmotivated and sometimes dreading coming in for the day.
This coupled with the fact that I am finishing my degree in a few weeks and soon to be going out into full time work for the rest of my life, has made me feel a whole lot of emotions. Scared? Regretful? Worried?
Yep all of those, it’s a busy and overwhelming time for a lot of people Id imagine!
Although I am not one to dwell too much as I can understand how much it can affect me, So I have decided to adopt a few techniques to de-stress, motivate and reassure myself that it’s all ok!
I have started to take pen to paper and write out what is stressing me out, what makes me worried and makes me feel these ways, then ways that I can fix how I’m feeling.
One of the ways I have found to “fix this” is by looking back on what I have already achieved, this is where my huge excel event plan checklist comes in handy, I take some time to reflect and see how much I have completed during my time here so far and I must be proud of myself and what I have achieved throughout this experience.
I have also found that I like to write out lists of things I have to look forward to as motivation. In this case I have some exciting things such as the site visit to Optus Stadium coming up, so I must use this as a motivator to keep going and keep rolling out of bed at 6am to get to the office!
By taking on these techniques I have allowed myself to feel a little more reassured and motivated to get through my internship. I suppose I must learn that its ok to not always make drastic progress and when things begin to slow down it is OK and I shouldn’t stress myself out and become discouraged!
I just need to take some time, think realistically, reflect, set some new goals, then power forward!
Alanna Hill 🙂
Writers Block: When in doubt, ask for help
Last week at my internship I was assigned the task to write a blog post for the company’s website. Writing jobs usually excite me, but make me nervous at the same time because I want it to be good enough.
English was one of my favourite classes in high-school, as I love the idea of telling a story and always learning new words. However, I have a tendency to “fluff” with my sentences rather than getting straight to the point. This is great when it comes to essay writing and explaining a story in as much detail as possible, but creating a blog post about marketing capabilities for a company felt like an enormous amount of pressure to me. I thought to myself – this is the real deal, and a proper chance to showcase what you are capable of.
With these doubts in my mind about where my weaknesses lie, I was getting no where. The thought of my work being proof-read that wasn’t (in my mind) perfect scared me. I had been given two hours to conduct research on the topic, and three hours to write it. The time limit pressure also got into my head with doubts of not being able to finish and letting people down.
Once I had collected my research and felt like I had enough to begin writing, the real challenge begun. I would create potential sentences in my mind and start to type them up, only to backspace it all away because it wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to sound. An entire afternoon of this had me feeling defeated, and doubting my abilities. Yep, I suffered from a severe case of writer’s block. Also known as the state of mind where you feel the inability to put anything down on the page due to fear of comparison or rejection of your work.
Since reflecting on this experience, I realised a few things that I was guilty of that were not doing me any favours. I was too afraid to ask for help because I had written a blog before and I thought they would expect me to do this on my own. This was the major take away from that day, however it is a huge learning curve that I will take with me into the future. I have since realised that everyone is willing to lend a helping hand, and assist with throwing ideas at you to help you continue with a task you may find difficult. The only thing stopping me from asking for help was myself and my self doubts. Being able to ask for another person’s perspective on a task may just be the new idea or boost of energy you need to power through and finish the job.
The next day, I went in with an open mind, and no expectations of myself. I asked for a second opinion from one of the senior coordinators and they set me on the right path. This allowed me to write the blog post within a couple of hours, and it is now published on the company website. I gained constructive feedback from the blog, that was extremely helpful and nothing to be afraid of. This experience proved to me that we are our own harshest critic, to not be afraid to ask for help, and that we are always learning.
Prepping for Picnics: An Inside Look into Event Management
Nearing the last few days of my internship, I’ll be helping out at an event at Cathedral Square called Picnics in the Square which will run every Friday in November. Coming up to November, we’ve been in the midst of intense preparation to make sure everything runs smoothly and I have been responsible for a range of tasks over a few weeks that have bettered my understanding of event management.
In order to draw traffic to the event, I had to complete a postcard drop to all the retailers and partners in Cathedral Square as well as all the City of Perth and tourism kiosks.
I also helped to drop off some picnic boxes to a variety of Perth media outlets as we were trying to garner media coverage for the event. After my supervisor and I picked up these boxes from Shop 1875 we then prepped each of them with a personalised letter and a media release, neatly decorating them with a ribbon. We drove to 7West and The Urban List to give these food samples to a number of local journalists. This ended up working as the event was mentioned in a variety of online articles and food sections in the following weeks.
I was responsible for creating a guest list for the event. This meant that I had to track every ticket order and compile it into an Excel document with the attendees’ information. Luckily, it’s quite easy to export data from Eventbrite. I also had to keep record of any attendees who had dietary requirements.
All the support staff will be wearing a t-shirt made specifically for the event. I had to source a number of white t-shirts so I did a bit of research to find a cheap option and, after deciding on Uniqlo, made my way there to purchase them. These t-shirts will then be dropped off to be screen printed.
As Assembly + Co previously ran this event last year, this meant that we could reuse a lot of supplies which was great as this would help us to stay on track with budget. As such, I had to do a quick reconnaissance of the storage room so I could see how many aprons, food boards and other kitchen utensils we had so I could know what else we needed to buy.
During our fortnightly meetings, I also got some insight into the logistics regarding the site set-ups and permissions that we needed to get from the surrounding properties. For the event, there will be live music from an orchestral quartet so we had to decide where they will be located, taking into consideration the sun exposure and where there would be enough space for a stage set-up.
As it comes up to the date of the first event I’m excited to see everything come together. It was very insightful getting first-hand experience planning for an event and I’m sure I’ll be able to learn much more while helping to run it on the day.
A Little Conclusion for This Unit
I am so thankful that I enrolled in this unit and got an offer from the company. There are few points that I’ve learnt from this placement.
Communication
As the company has different sublabels, the way to communicate with different clients is also different. The clients for different sub labels approached us for different purposes, therefore, the expectation and outcome expected are different. Through the placement, I understand that developing trust with clients can help to improve client relationships and will have a higher chance to generate conversion to the business.
As for internal communication, post mortem after every event will be done to improve tacit understanding in the team. From this, I also understand that teamwork is important as it will help to increase the efficiency and quality of work.
Davinci Resolve
A whole new software was discovered in this placement. This is good news to those who are interested to know about video editing but still hesitating due to the price of other editing software. Davinci Resolve is a software that covers the whole post-production without charging any fees!
Many Hollywood’s movie used this software to have the post production process such as Her, Blade Runner, Deadpool and Avengers.
However, not many people know about this software. Should I consider doing marketing for Davinci Resolve maybe? (lol)
Into the workforce
And the one last thing that I am excited about, I was offered to be the permanent staff! I was so happy when I got this offer from my supervisor even though I’m not graduating this semester.