Internship Landing Strategies is the title of the article I read in the Champlain Current last month. I am graduating from Champlain College in the next few weeks with a Bachelors degree in Communications. I chose to attend Champlain College mainly because of their unique upside down curriculum, which requires at least one internship at some point during your senior year. Now was the time to reflect on the value of my own internships.
The internship article I read emphasizes the importance of the internship experience. It mentioned how internships not only allow you to make connections with professionals but how participating in an internship allows you to make yourself more desirable to future employers by having experience in your major. In addition, an internship helps you understand what is available in the job market for after graduation.
I was a public relations intern at Marketing Partners in Burlington, Vermont for four months. I had interned at ECHO Lake Aquarium to help with social media the prior year before landing this internship. Due to my varied experiences, I had an idea of tasks I enjoyed and others in which I wanted to expand my knowledge. Going into this internship I had a lot of social media experience, but knew I could improve on my writing skills.
Ask & Receive
Marketing Partners initially asked what I would like to get from the internship overall. I was honest and said more writing experience. I got to do a variety of tasks, but the team made sure that my time was focused on writing as much as possible. Whether it was pitches, press releases, or social media messages, I would always be guided and get feedback on how I could improve.
Marketing Partners provided an environment in which I could attain my goals, and followed through with what I hoped to learn. My experience was that everyone I worked with was helpful and friendly towards me. From the beginning I was tasked with a vast variety of projects that required research, creativity, and hard work. I worked most closely with colleagues Nicole and Jenn. They consistently gave me enough responsibility to make me feel like I was an important addition to their team.
The Work
During my internship, I have been able to be an integral part of many meetings with my colleagues, researched client related issues, written and scheduled social media messages; and learned how to write effective pitches. The most time consuming task I worked on at Marketing Partners had to do with working with PR software. When I started at Marketing Partners we were in the process of switching from the PR software program Vocus over to BurrellesLuce, so I mainly worked with BurrellesLuce.
Since I had developed some familiarity with this program, my supervisor got me involved in creating media lists, researching media outlets; and gathering media clips using this software. I was surprised to learn about the programs functionality. You can search for media outlets and journalists throughout the world and also pull clips from the Internet about a certain topic or client. Learning about this software, as well as enterprise-level social media management software and best practices, will help me in other public relation firms.
Experience
Working at Marketing Partners as a public relations intern has been a significant learning experience for me. From learning what type of public relations firm I want to pursue in the future, to learning various skills to help me shine at interviews and life after college. I am very happy that I worked with Marketing Partners this semester and the inside scoop is I would recommend this company to anyone seeking an internship in the future.
So the article was right – From this internship I not only gained experience and connections within my field of study, but also learned how important and valuable teamwork is in a small PR and marketing firm.
Guest blogger Sarah Thibodeau is a student at Champlain College who calls Dover, NH her home.
