Where to start ... ?

As I previously mentioned I am doing my internship at the International Students Committee (ISC) at Curtin University. I have been working there for several weeks now and I really think I have been improving my self-confidence.

The main concern I had when I started my internship was that I will be working almost unsupervised and I was a bit afraid that I was not ready to really work on my own in a real work environment. When you are at uni, it is quite secured. I mean, when you complete your assignments, either for a real life client or not, you are supervised by your tutors or lecturers. They are there to give you feedbacks on your work and to make sure you are on the right track.

I work with the PR officer, a master student at Curtin University, who is, like me, new at the ISC. Therefore it is sometimes a bit confusing what needs to be done. The first meeting we had was mainly to introduce everyone and the ISC. After that meeting we were a bit on our own to work on whatever we wanted to. To be honest, I was a bit lost. Where to begin? What to do?

I started to realise that it was much harder to work in the real world. All the reports that I compiled for the PR units were all for specific objectives. But now I was on my own, and basically I could do anything I could think of. And that’s what the problem was. I started thinking about so many things that could be done that it was hard to focus and pick one idea and start working on that. Freedom is great when you know how to use it.

I therefore did what I was used to do when starting a report for any PR units: research! Then I could come up with issues followed by ideas to “fix” them. It might sounds a bit too schoolish but I really needed to have some form of structures to produce a good work.

One of the main issues the ISC is facing is a lack of awareness. This reassures me as I was used to deal with raising awareness for organisations. I therefore knew what can work and what can’t. All the theories and assignments that I’ve done at uni really helped me. However this time it was in a real life context so it was not just about coming up with ideas but actually put them into practice.

I am not always let without any directions. Sometimes the convenor of the ISC specifically asks for something that needs to be done. One of the tasks that I was asked to undertake was to find sponsors for the main event of the ISC, the Multi-Cultural week, held in October. This is still in progress, as finding sponsors is not something that you can finalise in one week. For me it was a good occasion to demonstrate my skills and knowledge, and put into practice what I learned throughout my studies. I have to say I was glad I still had the lecture notes on sponsorship; it was a really good starting point.

What I realised since I have been doing my internship at the ISC is that when you start working in the real world you really have to be confident about you and what you can do. I think it is really important to do a good job. And confidence come with practice so I hope that by the end of my internship I would have improve my self-assurance a lot more

That’s all for now, have a great week!

Diane