Completion
So that’s it, my internship now complete.
My experiences over the past couple of months have been invaluable. I have learnt and seen so much that I will take with me into the future. So what were the best and hardest parts of my internship?
Hardest
I thought I would start with the tougher elements of my Internship because leaving on a positive note is always best.
Being out of my depth
This was definitely the most challenging aspect of my time at the Telethon Kids Institute (TKI). If you’ve read any of my other post you would have noticed how many lessons I’ve learn. I’ve been at University for roughly four and a half years spanning over two degrees and I honestly I feel I’ve learnt more valuable lessons at my internship over 8 weeks than my time in University. Having said that this meant learning some very uncomfortable lessons, like wow I really need to up my game in many aspects, including my writing skills, research skills and social skills. This was hard to conclude but I now acknowledge that being out of my depth can make me realise things I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Working alongside great minds
I won’t lie I felt pretty mediocre compared to those that work at TKI. This includes the communication department, the scientists, researchers , PhD students and I mean even the admin staff. Everyone there was clearly very good, if not a benchmark of their field. This was a very intimidating environment to be in. I had to conduct an interview with the Head of the Lung department and email all the other Heads of departments, not to mention walk the same halls as them. These Dr’s, Professors, Lecturers have developed work that is beyond my comprehension, work that has saved lived and helped thousands. Realising your a minuscule fish inside a global ocean is something that is a little hard to deal with, I won’t lie.
Long days in-front of a computer
My lower half and my eyes have never hated me so much in all of my existence. By week 8 I had just started to get use to the 8:30-5pm days, then it was over. This aspect of my internship was a struggle, the train rides, the sitting and the computing. It was definitely worth it though.
Finding my place
Learning where you belong in such a reputable company can be difficult. I felt that no matter how good my work was I didn’t even come close to all the experienced and intelligent individuals working there. In saying that though I found that if I kept my head down and did my best it was appreciated which was really all that I could have hoped for.
Best
Working alongside great minds
This was a section under my hardest parts of the internship, funny that. I must acknowledge that yes this was incredibly intimidating and hard at times but also such a privileged. I must comment that everyone was lovely, there wasn’t that feeling of being ‘looked down on’. This is something that I truly admired, because lets be honest I really was someone slightly out of my depth.
Learning outcomes
As mentioned in my previous blogs the lessons I learned were extensive, invaluable and very appreciated. I can see why people believe this is a great unit.
Comms and Development Team
This was the department I worked in, the people who taught me and took me under their wing. These individuals combined had a 100 years plus of experience working in the field. The team comprised of journalists, media officers, communication officers, social media experts, research and development officers, and overall it comprised of some seriously intelligent, reputable and amazing people. To have worked alongside this team really is something I will always be appreciative of.
Expanding my comfort zone
As scary as my internship was, I wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere else.
Identity & Reputation…The core of any business
Over the past few weeks at my internship I’ve become more and more aware of the importance of a companies reputation, its image and brand. My internship at the Telethon Kids Institute has taught me how important it actually is to create work that meets a brands ideals. The Telethon Kids Institute is a not-for-profit private organisation that is run on donations and funding. Therefore, the core of them achieving that is how people view what their doing, who they are and if they’re worth the money. I must say this is something the Telethon Kids Institute is simply brilliant at, they are a benchmark in preserving and promoting such a reputable brand. They do this through a range of techniques, which I myself have also had to adopt, learn and now respect.
Writing Style
The Telethon Kids Institute has adopted a writing style that is consistent across all platforms including; social media, emails and media releases. The tone that the communication’s teams write in is highly intelligent yet simple. The majority of information the Telethon Kids team has to promote is retrieved from very in depth studies often presented in the form of Journal articles. This means the team have to decipher the information, find out whats important and write it in a way that their audiences understand. Not only do they have that mission they also have multiple stakeholders to keep in mind, and much of the content they write about can create emotive, unpredictable responses e.g. vaccinations. I learnt many valuable lessons about the techniques to employ when it comes to consistent writing styles. My recommendation to anyone entering a new workplace would be to investigate published work and observe the style and tone and then apply it to your upcoming work.
Colour Scheme and fonts
During my time at Telethon I’ve had to develop a series of thumbnails for YouTube videos. With each video I had to box a series of words, through Photoshop, each of these boxes had to be in a specific colour. All the colours used were retrieved from the Telethon Kids logo through the droplet tool. I thought this was a very simple yet extremely effective technique. I’m not sure if other companies do the same but this meant that all the thumbnails could be consistent. Following this pattern, the words used in the thumbnail all had a specific font selected which was to be used across all videos developed for social media. This all may seem like obvious things however, I thought it was brilliant that these rules were put in place simply because it meant the brand looked neat and put together. This is something I would highly recommend all businesses employ.
Communications
The Telethon Kids Employees simply hold the companies reputation by the way they present and hold themselves. As soon as you walk into the building everyone is friendly, motivated and there for the same reason ‘ to help children live better lives’. This in its self is such a strong reason why they are so successful. The people that work there don’t just go into work for the money they all actually believe in the institutes mission. It’s important to understand the culture of a workplace in order to fit in.
Learning Zone
One thing I wasn’t prepared for in my internship was the crazy amount of learning. I knew I would be applying past knowledge and building on that, but I had no idea about how much I didn’t actually know. So here are some of the lessons I’ve learnt so far in my internship.
Criticism and how not to take it as a personal attack
During the last few weeks I have received a spectrum of tasks. These tasks consisted of tweet drafts, research projects, YouTube video editing and much more. Now, I assumed that when going into a business as an intern, staff and supervisors often wouldn’t have the time to provide large amounts of feedback, to my surprise this was very much not the case.
Being provided with large amounts of feedback is both good and extremely hard at times. As an intern and uni student a lesson I had to learn very quickly is that there is so much I don’t know…bucket loads in fact. I’m not only referring to public relation strategies in general but to in-house techniques, styles and expectations. These are things you can’t learn before-hand, they need to be learnt as you go and get better with experience. Therefore, as a new comer a lot of the criticism I received on my work wasn’t exactly all that I had hoped for. Comments and emails referring to my projects consisted of this is good but you basically need to change everything. Initially this was very hard to hear, upsetting even. I had spent days, weeks even, on some of these projects and really did give it my all, so what do you mean change everything?
After the initial internal upset much of the original feedback was often followed by reassurance that everyone in the early stages of entering a new business will have lots to learn and that’s just how it is. This definitely helped things, it helped me to understand that I wasn’t being victimized, just that I was new to the industry and it was as simple as that.
My biggest lesson was to not feel sad, despite the many times I did have to fight this feeling but to learn from it. I had to remember that the feedback their giving me helps my personal growth and future opportunities, despite it not matching my expectations. This is probably the hardest thing to cope with, yet the most beneficial in the long run.
Media Releases
Ow my goodness media releases… following from my previous segment on criticism I have never received so much in my life until I had to do a media release. Now at uni we get told this is how it’s done and go, it’s then followed by a mark, if satisfactory you never have to worry about again. In the real world this is so not the case. Often in the early days of entering a new business or in my case anyway, once you write a draft, you then have to re-do it about a hundred more times with different feedback every time until it’s perfect. The worst part of a media release is sending the changed addition for approval and then waiting…and waiting…and waiting some more, to only have it sent back with more suggestions. Finally, once it gets approval however, the relief is great. I’m not going to lie though, this continuous loop was almost the death of me… almost.
The biggest lesson learnt here was to be patient, take the suggestions and to apply them in the best possible way you can. Recognisably, it takes a truly experienced profession to write a media release perfect on the first go. So in other words, resilience is key.
Social Media
Social media, social media, social media, every channel, every page, every post. Life is all about social media in today’s age, it is the forefront of a company’s image, brand and all things important. I tell you what, the lessons I’ve learned about twitter are extensive. I’ve never really been a fan of twitter with myself having around 6 followers with all of those due to my PR units. Facebook and Instagram on the other hand I have an obsession for. It’s amazing how different we brand ourselves compared to how a company brands themselves, you’re probably thinking ‘duh’. But to my surprise I really didn’t know how much went into a single post. Approval, drafts, photography, editing, searching for the most popular hashtags, making sure to follow the most important influencer’s in that topic and those are only some of the things that are necessary for a business social media post. Company brand colors, correct terminology and proper titles are also a must.
All of the above were mini insights into the world of company social media, the biggest lesson in this area however, is how careful you have to be about clicking post. Sounds crazy right? For me though, this was definitely a beneficial lesson. By clicking post, both in the public domain and in emails to important professionals you are opening a world of possibility, both good and bad. It made me realise how important editing and triple checking really is. One wrong word could cause tremendous consequences that could be detrimental to a company’s reputation.
It’s fair to say that the last few weeks have most definitely resulted in learnt lessons, realisations and eye-openers.
Twilight Zone
No one can prepare you for that first encounter with the business world. No matter how many jobs you’ve worked, distinctions you’ve received or prep talks you’ve been given it’s still always going to be a whole new world.
So, is this world full of good or bad experiences? In my personal opinion, its filled with both.
The Good Experiences
The lead up to, and during my first week granted many new experiences. So, what were some of the good ones?
Experience One: Business wear, definitely the business wear. As cliche and pathetic as this sounds I loved the new attire. As a woman, who’s worked in some pretty average places as a cook, waitress, customer service assistant and much more I’ve worn my fair share of disastrous fashion referred to as ‘work uniform’. For once in my life I had the opportunity to look professional, wear something of my own choice and I have to tell you, I liked it. It’s amazing what a tailored, black pants suit with a ironed top can do to a woman. It makes you feel important, and powerful even before you walk through the doors of what is the ‘business world’.
Experience Two: Enough about clothing. The second best experience may sound odd. It was my fear the day before entering my internship. This fear was in the form of nerves, nerves that I had never experienced before. I knew I was going to be out of my comfort zone, surrounded by people that most definitely knew more than me and I really didn’t want to screw it up. These thoughts just wouldn’t leave my head, what if i don’t know anything? what if they think I’m dumb? what if i miss my train? It wasn’t the fear I enjoyed, it was the concurring of the fear. I still caught the train, ironed my shirt, walked through those doors and got through my first day.
Experience Three: Learning, in that first week I had so much to learn. I knew enough to get by and luckily I can catch on to things fairly quickly. Nevertheless it’s fair to say by the end of the first week my brain hurt. Hurt in the sense that I was desperate to binge watch Netflix to recover. However, the lessons I’ve already learnt are invaluable. I’ve learnt real world skills that I know will be so incredibly handy in the future. These lessons include: adding subtitles to YouTube videos, creating thumbnails, the right way to email (very important and smart people) how to conduct interviews, and the hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn – how to sit at an office desk for 8 hours. I wish someone had told me how much my lower half would suffer if I’ve never had an office job before.
Experience Four: This sounds like an odd one to add but working in Subiaco taught me a very important lesson…how much street parking costs. This lead to me finally learning Perth’s train systems and to my surprise actually using it
The Not So Good Experiences
The reality of an internship is that there will always be something you don’t like, that’s hard or just down right unpleasant. So, what are some of the not so good ones?
Experience One: Learning where everything is, on day one I learnt that my workplace was actually incredibly complicated, yes I got lost..more than once. Furthermore, day one was orientation, this meant I had to go through a number of modules such as, fire training, facility training, ID badge photo’s. These all sound okay, correct? No, once I had completed these modules at different parts of the building, I was left in those parts of the building. The employees of the company I am interning for are incredibly busy people (understandably) however, this meant I was often left alone to find my way back. Needless to say my sense of direction is less than zero. In saying this, eventually I found my way back, despite my occasional run-ins with incorrect offices.
Experience Two: Paperwork, Holley Moley the paperwork. Day one most was struggle town, I was required to complete an 81 page document for my orientation. The company I work for has some very extensive rules due to testing and research, which meant very serious introductory paperwork. I absolutely understand the necessity of it, I must admit though after reading it for a certain period of time words no longer look like words and just scribbles on a page. After day one however, things did get more interesting.
Experience Three: Learning where you fit in. I’ve always considered myself a friendly and confident person, a little loud and way to talkative. However, I found that the nerves took over and my personality was lost a little. When you walk into an environment that’s so overwhelming and everyone is incredibly knowledgeable, professional and placed it’s difficult to learn where you sit. It’s fair to assume your at the bottom of the hierarchy which is uncomfortable for a little while. It took a few days to not feel like I was a burden. This was because they had to take the time to find me jobs and tasks in the first few days. Once these jobs had been established I finally felt like I was productive and doing something that was beneficial to the company. But yes, it just took a little while.
Experience Four: Being afraid to ask questions. Throughout my education, even as a child, I was never afraid to ask questions, that’s what educators and parents are for right? Even in my jobs they weren’t my career if someone thought it was a dumb question, or whatever, it didn’t really matter. When your in a fast paced work environment, where everyone’s jobs are important and there loaded with work, it feels a little different. For once in my life I was scared to ask questions. I didn’t want to interrupt, annoy or burden anyone. In saying that though I also didn’t want to sit there and not be productive. Eventually, I figured out the best form of communication for asking a question in a busy work environment…Email. Emailing a question is the best way to go, at my work anyway. It gives them time to respond when there ready, assuming its not a super important question. It also means you don’t have to walk over and interrupt anyone
All In All
Overall, week one wasn’t awful. The lessons learnt and the experience I’ve already received most definitely out-way any of the bad elements I encountered.