Aaand we made it out…. alive!
It was a huge relief to find out how much more relaxed and fun my internship could be. In TV and movies interns are always portrayed as being extremely overworked, stressed out to the max and easily taken advantage of – those poor unpaid workers running around only doing basic errands such as taking coffee orders and dry cleaning like Andy from the Devil Wears Prada.
Although I was fully aware that basic and sometimes even tedious functions are a normal part of work and life and honestly have no issue with doing those things (small tasks can often be very satisfying!) I’m super appreciative that I got the opportunity to actually help out and contribute to the organisation while being able to learn a lot of useful skills along the way. Of course, it should always be a two-way exchange, in return for the work we do as unexperienced undergraduates, we get the experience to learn and be involved in a real organisation and get to finally apply the skills and knowledge we’ve learnt from our degree. I’m super grateful to Lorelei, my mentor and supervisor, for taking me under her wing, and the others in the Raine Study’s close little family.
I’ve learnt so much from this experience, through both soft skills and hard skills and couldn’t have asked for a better placement. Although I’m still unsure of which direction I want my future career to head in, whether it be towards PR or marketing, in a big corporate firm, or another non-profit organisation, it has definitely given me a much clearer insight on what it’s like working in quote “in the real world.”
Two main things I’ve learnt from this experience is, firstly, don’t be scared to ask questions! There’s no point wasting time doing the wrong thing if you are unsure. There’s no shame in not being an expert from the beginning – if you don’t ask then you won’t learn. Although at times I was pretty nervous to ask about some things, it always felt so much better to get clarification for things that were new to me or weren’t clear to understand, and secondly, just enjoy the experience. Doing this internship doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be working in the same internship and same career path for the rest of your life. In fact, it’s common for people to switch jobs every 5-10 years now. Take this learning experience in stride and make the most of the opportunity to meet new people and try something different. Even though I’m still not certain of where I’m headed after graduation, I now have a better sense of where I want to be in my career.
Although I was super scared and worried about starting the reflective practise unit, and even had a major hiccup trying to find my first placement, it was an undeniably valuable experience that I couldn’t have gained through other university units alone. I hope that others enjoyed their internship as much as I did and wish everyone all the best in their future endeavours! Congrats on making it through!
Katy
busy, busy, busy!
Is it me or does the morning go super slow but then by 12pm times flies and before I know it, it’s the end of the day? I guess once you really get into it, everything just flows from then on. Something I found really helpful is to write a list of things I have to do that day even if I can still remember it in the back of my mind. This way I can track my goals more effectively and ensure that I don’t forget to do anything that needs to be done.
So far, I’ve learnt how to use Buffer, Eventbrite and WordPress. Learning the basics of those software was far easier than I thought it would be, everything is super easy to understand and pick up.
I also experienced our first major crisis at the internship – we ran out of milk! You’re probably thinking something along the lines of ‘why on earth is this considered a crisis?’ and ‘who on earth drinks milk at work?’ but actually running out of milk means that there was no more coffee for the office and oh man, really was a big disappointment. I guess most of us realised just how addicted we were to coffee and needed it to power us through the day.
Back on track, this month we’ve been really busy working towards our upcoming event, an annual scientific meeting where researchers and other guest speakers share their findings and contributions using the data collected at Raine Study. I’m super excited for the event, but also a little nervous that something might go wrong last minute. We’ve been busy preparing and helping set up the big event, and hope that it’s going to run smoothly and effortlessly!
One ethical consideration I encountered was when creating social media posts and other materials, I had to be careful to only select images from The Raine Study’s recent photoshoot and that I couldn’t just pick up any random image of the participants to use. Good thing that they took around 40 different images, otherwise I might have to create some digital visuals on canva or reuse the same ones 32432098 times! Although it’s not illegal to use photos of our adult participants, some people don’t feel particularly comfortable having their photos used or having their face represent something that they didn’t agree to represent. As our participants are all voluntary and give up so much time and effort towards the studies, the last thing I would want is to upset anyone!
In the last couple of weeks, I received probably more mail than I have ever received in such a short period of time. I learnt to save a copy of everything onto my desktop to avoid having to search through many emails to find different bits of information and attachments. What are some simple hacks that you guys have learnt over the course of your internship? Let me know your ideas down in the comments below, I would love to learn more!
new discoveries
I had my first and second ever meetings this week. One of the topics on the agenda you wouldn’t believe, was the issue of too much cake! A bit different to our usual line of work, but nonetheless still something that had to be addressed. You see, the team at the Raine Study decided on the tradition of bringing cake every time someone or their family member had a birthday. Sounds great! Or… maybe not so much, once they realised that birthdays were coming up much more frequently than expected (imagine a big cake every week!). So much that we had to decide to limit the amount of dessert as we were of course, a health research centre. Jokes aside, I realised how critically important meetings are to any workplace or team, as it allows everyone to quickly recap the changes that have happened so far and prepare them for any upcoming events. It’s also great having everyone all in one room to discuss things quickly and more in-depth – much more effective than writing an email.
One thing that I was so surprised to learn in the workplace was many people just email each other bits of information instead of meeting each other in their offices.
At uni I’m used to sending emails only when absolutely necessary, such as when I am being formal, have a lot to say or need to send an attachment or when someone is hard to reach. In the office however, sending each other quick emails is a very time effective way to communicate with others in a way that also prevents frequent disruptions. Some of the girls in my cross-cultural unit were quite surprised when they learnt this during their own internship units too. Another thing I didn’t realise until now was that I some of my emails sounded a little too formal and maybe even forced, as I really overcompensated for my typically more casual tone. I guess it’s about finding a balance without accidentally sounding like a dusty old dictionary. I finally learnt the real purpose of CC in an email and I’m loving it, it’s so handy!
I’m glad that we learnt all about copyright laws and issues in PR law, as there are a lot of copyright issues involved with using fonts, designs and images without proper attribution or payment. You won’t believe how many people don’t know that ‘royalty-free’ images aren’t actually free for public use. Although I honestly think the name is a bit misleading to people who aren’t design experts, ‘royalty free’ materials are actually made for the intent of being purchased for reproduction. While you aren’t able to purchase the rights to fully own the materials and do whatever you want with them (e.g. sell them again for profit), you have now purchased the rights to use it wherever and however many times you like. Hence why it’s royalty free and not copyright free. All I can say is I’m glad it has nothing to do with us! But you can never be too careful.
Four weeks in and there’s still a lot more work to be done! Stay tuned for more updates.
In the beginning…
Although I am posting this super late in my internship, here is my recount of my first week at my internship. I was lucky enough to score a position at The Raine Study, right after one of my classmates, Steph had just finished her placement there.
As a brief introduction, The Raine Study is a multi-generational research study that frequently collects data from their cohort of a couple thousand participants to discover how genetics, environmental and lifestyle factors influence health. The Raine Study is one of the only multi-generational research studies that has data leading all the way up to the first couple of months of pregnancy, in comparison to other similar studies that begin after birth. As a result, they have found a great amount of data on prenatal lifestyle and environmental factors that can influence on the offspring’s health in later life. It feels great being able to work for a non-profit organisation that’s making huge contributions to society’s understanding of health and wellbeing.
Going further into the events of the first day, I was super nervous that morning and came in early just for some extra time to get settled in before I started. Embarrassingly, I accidentally walked into the wrong building, as both buildings looked identical from the outside and Google maps was directing me to the neighbouring building. Nonetheless, I still managed to find my way there and never made the same mistake again!
Even for a moderately small sized team, there was a lot of names and titles to remember and I’ve got to admit it took me a couple of days to really nail them down. Thank goodness the Raine Study has photos and names of most team member listed on their website hahah!
My first tasks involve helping assist with a presentation, designing research posters on Canva and creating a social media schedule for October. I was surprised how many special days are dedicated to health in October, such as the global mental health and breast cancer days.
Today I was also lucky enough to experience the construction of a channel 10 news story. The news clip was about how The Raine Study helped to create a facial scanning software that analyses the face composition and structure, providing data that can help in the quick diagnoses of conditions such as sleep apnoea. It was fascinating to see how a news story was created – kudos to the amazing reporter and her camerawomen for their skilled and talented performance. For just a short several minute-long segment, it took us three hours to film, with multiple takes for some scenes. I imagine it would then take probably a few more hours to then cut and put together the full story until it’s final stage.
The most incredible part was when our main feature, a long-time participant at the Raine Study gave a hilarious Oscar-winning fake snore performance to demonstrate the sleep study.
I really have to touch up on my interpersonal skills for the future, as part of our job is also to make connections and maintain good relationships with people from other industries. As a non-profit organisation, getting enough awareness to help further share our research findings with others around the world is so important, which is why we were so grateful the journalist/media reporter was interested in sharing this story and wanted to do more in the future.
I’m looking forward to what will happen in the next couple of weeks and will report back soon – stay tuned!