Note to Self: Keep Breathing! It's only your first day!

Hello everyone! Let me introduce myself before I go telling you my little story about my first day at my internship. My name is Cassandra Lu, but you can all call me Cassie. I’m currently in my final semester (at the start I couldn't wait for this day to come, but now I'm slightly sad to see my university life come to an end) at Curtin University. I'm currently undertaking a double major in Public Relations/ Tourism and Event Management. 

I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to complete my internship at Linc Integrated. Linc is an advertising and marketing consultancy in Perth, Linc also provide other services including public relations, web designing and other various service in relations to marketing and advertising. The company consists of around 15 to 20 employees but the PR team itself consists of Rebecca Johnston (Strategic Advisor), Lisa Barratt (Senior PR consultant) and Conrad Natoli (Public Relations Consultant).

Before I go further on, I should mention my brief history with Linc Integrated. This wasn't the first time I worked with Linc and my supervisors Rebecca and Lisa. I had first met these two lovely ladies as a student volunteer for their work on Bankwest Launch event at Raine Square in October.

Although, I had met everyone on the team, I still had the jitters. As I walked to my spot, I greeted the team and was welcomed with nothing but big grins and “Hey Cassie”. After having a quick chat, I sat at my desk and began my duties as a intern.

After 30 minutes! I finally got my computer and email ready and began my first task assigned for the day; Media monitoring! Easy peasy. Media monitoring at Linc was pretty straightforward. We would each be allocated a publication, which we would then read and take note of what was technically making “headlines” and would be relevant enough to apply to our company and clients. The document only had to be 7-10 bullet points and a sentence describing the news would be enough.

Now I was up to my second task for the day. Bec briefly explained various projects that were currently active at Linc, one of which was a online/magazine portal aimed for the baby boomer market. The portal would offer content relevant to the target market and provide accessibility by allocating it all on the site.What I had to do was find blogs that “over 50’s” would most likely resort to when wanting to source their information. Topics could include current affairs, sport, finance, travel, health & wellbeing, lifestyle, events and other related topics. Putting myself in the mindset of a baby boomer, I began researching what I personally would type into the web to source my information.

After my lunch break I was given a task as a break from all the research I had done. One thing I know for sure that i've learned from this task, was the copious amount of research needed for a client/project was essential but given the limited amount of time it can be quite daunting and difficult to meet deadlines. The amount of research needed for a project can take up so much time without knowing.

Once all that was out the way, I got to the true nitty gritty areas of Public Relations! The good ole media release writing. Given time to read the client brief and various materials related to my media release, my mind was racing with a million questions such as “OH NO WHAT DO I WRITE!” Once I had finished reading the brief and understanding what my client did and what my media release required, Bec came over noticing my nerves she smiled and told me “ Don’t stress Cassie, just think of it as writing down ideas on a paper and it will eventually come naturally”.

*15 minutes later* I was literally sitting there at my desk with nothing but mind blanks! I couldn’t even come up with a title. Not wanting to look like a fool with a blank document on her first day, I began forming random titles and random paragraphs and piling information and formatting the media release with skills I had learnt in my past PR techniques classes. Quite glad I still remembered some of those skills such as proper punctuation when quoting, the triangle of information and other important media release writing techniques especially after the long uni break we all just had.

Once I began putting my ideas and thoughts onto the pages, I had noticed I had begun to form my media release and all I had to do was put the correct formatting and added quotes as requested. Once I checked and re-read my media release I handed it back to Bec and was provided with feedback on areas of approval.

First mistake I had made, which I called a rookie mistake was keeping media release to sentences not paragraphs! After reading through my mistakes and correcting my media release I sent my final media release and Bec sent me the release she had prepared earlier. Reading the two and comparisons, I learnt a thing or two and what areas I had needed to improve on for future media release writings.  

Without even knowing, that was the end of my day. Not even realising till I was told to go home by my supervisors! Who would have known it was already 5:30pm and my first day at my internship was over. Saying bye to everyone and walking out of those doors, I realised I was in fact “home” and I had chosen the right degree despite the years of doubting. I was already looking forward to my second day!