I only started work last Wednesday (I know its a bit late compared to the rest of you guys), and went through the usual procedures of being introduced to my colleagues, which was only 5 of us in total so far. My manager, Andrea Jones, went through what was expected of me, and what I can do to help her and her team. And so, the first day of work kicked off.
Basically, I had to research the university's competitors, regarding health sciences, which includes Social Work, Pharmacy, Occupational Therapy, etc. For example, University of Queensland also offers Social Work as one of their courses. So what I had to do was to find out more about them. Even though we have always been studying about how important it is to know your competitors, this is the first time that I am actually doing researching it hands-on. Now, I have learnt through first-hand experience about what environmental scanning is like.
Secondly, the second job was to write a press release for Andrea, regarding a student who has recently graduated from the Nutrition course in Curtin University, who is also in a very popular rock band in Perth. Since I have never done Public Relations (Techniques), it was only the second time that I have ever written a press release, so it took me a while to get the hang of it.
At the same time, I got the chance to talk to my colleagues and communicate with them, and concurrently I understood more about what the Health Science department and what exactly are the courses offered, because since I'm from business, I have realised that it is totally different from Health Science. Especially the wide variety of majors that the latter offers. I also got to know more about the numerous number of events that they plan annually.
And just this week, Andrea assigned me another task regarding the 50th anniversary celebration of the Health Science school. I was rather glad that I took Public Relations (Media), since I had to organise the photographs according to the history of the school since the 1950s. I had to edit pictures and type in information about it.
Well, I hope that I would be able to learn as much as I can, and in addition, be able to assist them in their upcoming events to know what goes on behind the scenes and in turn, use these valuable, hands-on skills to secure a better position in a hotel job in Singapore.
1 comment:
Hey Erica!
Good job on finding your placement. I hope your professional experience will be as nice as mine currently is.
It looks like an interesting internship and I am sure you will take the best experience out of it. It is a good training to be "thrown" in the professionnal sphere before ending Uni, and it provides a valuable experience that you can add on your CV!
It is a good thing to be in a small team I believe. Communication between you and your colleagues will be more efficient and smooth. At least, it should be easier to communicate than if you were in a very big department. I can tell you, this is my situation and it is sometimes a bit hard to find my way out in this huge organisation and hierarchy. There is a director for every department, country, service... And sometimes as much communication officers. Anyway, I hope you'll have a great time with them!
You too have figured out the importance of the PR Media unit hey... how useful is that? Actually, it is somehow difficult to realise how useful this unit can be, but when you work in the PR field later on, you're glad someone taught you exactly what you have to do.
You can think well... yeah, it might be useful but maybe I won't have to use it. And if we read just a few posts that have been posted on this blog, it isn't hard to find people that obviously had to actually take care of PR media and set a media contact lists, or photographs/articles referencing for their mission!
I'm sure you will be just fine. Managers and colleagues acknowledge the fact that it can be our very first professional experience, so they tend to be tolerant even though they expect us to produce efficient and high quality work.
Enjoy your time there ;)
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