I'm Hamish and like a lot of other students I'm undertaking an internship under the WA Government Internship Program (4 days so far!). I was fortunate enough to get a placement with the Central Institute of Technology (Central for short) in Northbridge in the heart of the cultural precinct.
Central has undergone massive changes in the past 12 months as it was formally called Central TAFE and was apart of TAFE WA until late last year the West Australian Government formed Training WA and threw away the TAFE umbrella all of the training centres sat under. This means now there is greater competition between training centres and they must work harder in all aspects to gain government and industry funding and getting more bums on seats. This is where I have come in.
I'm working in the marketing and communications department at Central under the watchful and experienced eye of the communications manager Michael. My official role is to gather information and resources about 'Centres of Specialisation' within Central's offered curriculum and putting it into readable terms in a simple but effective pamphlet aimed at policy makers and industry heavyweights. Basically it's a document outlining why Central is the greatest in specific areas and these documents will be read by government and/or CEO's, MD's and GM's (who take Central's graduates into their company) and they will wan't to give the institute loads of moneys.
The greatest part about this placement is the variety of experience I am getting. Along with this assigned work I have been interviewing people and conjuring ideas for the online staff magazine and writing press releases. The most notable part of this work that makes me reminisce about past PR units is engaging with all sorts of different stakeholders and people. We have been taught to be tolerant and respectful to people and that is not a difficult thing to do but recently I have been interviewing and talking with lecturers from the Creative Industries (read: art and media) sector of the college and their are certainly some characters. I've been finding it hard to take these people seriously due to my complete lack of knowledge about art and their complete enthusiasm for it (and outrageous haircuts).
Last week I talked with the director of Arts at Central and got blown away by his character and at some points it was a humorous chat for me but very serious for him. He flailed arms and had a glint in his eye I used to have as a kid when mum brought home a new Lego pirate ship. I powered through though and kept the discussion going. It turned out he gave me some great information and in the end I realised he was just really passionate about the Arts in WA and at Central. In my short time here I'm finding these tips we have learnt throughout our degree may have seemed like common sense at the time but have really been resonating with me now but in a professional sense.
The scope of work and activities I'm undertaking in this degree is amazing and I'm enjoying myself a lot so I expect these blogs won't be as daunting as I thought they would be.
Until the next time.
Hamish Hastie.
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