Kaplan Aspect Perth

Hello everyone,

Its been awhile since I posted up entries, I was in the midst of moving house and have been living without the internet for a month or so! Thankfully i'm back on track now :) My internship at Kaplan Aspect has already been completed and while I didn't get a chance to blog during that time, not to worry, I did do my reflections on soft copy.. hehe.

so let's see where I left off!

Week 2, 27th July 09

I am about halfway through my internship and I am really starting to love every moment of it! The pace is definitely picking up and I am motivated to do my job well at work. This week, our office is buzzing with excitement because we are getting ready for our monthly "Quiz Night" event, created specially for our international students to be able to have a fun night out while having an opportunity to practice their English. :) Although the Quiz Night (QN) will be taking place at the end of the month, preparations have to begin now, and everyone is busy running around trying to get the extra QN workload completed on top of the normal duties that they already have.

My duties for Quiz Night include the designing of QN tickets, QN menus and drink lists, QN posters and road map directions as well as the creation of name badges for Kaplan Aspect staff members. Of course, this can only be done in the office for a few hours a day before lunchtime as after that I have my event coordination duties (bringing the group of Taiwanese students around Perth) as well as my visual-based newsletters to complete. A busy period indeed! But how quickly time passes - Mondays to Fridays at work seems to go by in a flash; it really feels completely different to a week at uni :P

However, it also goes without saying that the stress level at work has also increased. With a lot on my plate to handle, there is a certain pressure on me to make sure that things are done correctly, done nicely, done on time, and most importantly, done only once. I learnt this the hard way - a couple of days ago, I was asked to create an A3 full-colour poster advertising "DVD Friday", which is a weekly screening of 3 English movies held at Kaplan that aims to help students improve their English. After spending a whole morning on the poster, I printed it out.. only to realise that I had forgotten to change the printer's paper to A3 and the poster got printed on an A4 sheet! This was a huge waste of color ink and although my boss was really nice about it and told me not to worry, I felt quite bad and have thus decided to be more diligent, in order to avoid making these mistakes again, especially when all of my work (newletters, posters etc) involves Publisher and the use of color ink.

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Reflection

Looking back, I have come to realise that as a PR practitioner, the quality of the work you produce is equally as important as the work itself, if not more. I can't emphasise enough just how necessary it is to always proof read and double check everything before sending it to print, and always make sure that every detail is correct and done as professionally as you can; because that piece of work will be a reflection of you, as well as a representation of your organisation. My internship has taught me many valuable lessons that money can't buy, and I am really grateful (still) to have been able to work under such an understanding boss and mentor. :)

I hope all of you are having a great time with your internships!

Claire Heng

Curtin University (Bentley)