Show Them What You're Made Of

Hello fellow interns, my name is Josephine Joeyna Ak Joseph Jantan,  I’m in my final semester of my Bachelor of Arts, Mass Communications degree, majoring in Public Relations and I’m interning full-time with… *drumroll please* Curtin University Sarawak’s Corporate Communications Department.

A lot of my friends were surprised when I told them that I will be interning with Corporate Communications and some seniors even told me that interning in the university will be a bore as I will probably only be given newspapers to read and to do media clippings.

After the end of my first week here, I can say that there has not been a boring day in the office. The office is always bustling, colleagues are nice and friendly and are always eager to share their knowledge of the corporate world with me. After the first three days, I actually look forward to my early mornings (though I am not much of a morning person) when I get to walk into the office, greet everyone good morning, make myself a steaming cup of coffee and then sit at my desk reading the day’s newspapers and updating the rest on current news every once in a while.

A week in and I already feel like I am part of the Corporate Communications family. When it gets too quiet in the office, Ian or Flynn would pipe up with a funny or witty comment on something they stumbled upon on their Facebook newsfeed or they would ask me if I read anything interesting to which will lead to short interesting discussions.

Whenever I am done with the media clippings I would ask around to see if anyone had anything for me do. My colleagues were more than happy to pass some work on to me, especially if it includes walking all the way to the other end of the campus to take a group photograph for a press release, and I did not mind doing it. In summary of what I have done this week, I've taken photographs of 3 events and they were used to accompany media releases sent out to the press, I've drafted a media release and a press conference invitation to the press, done a week’s worth of media clippings and kept the Monthly Activity Report updated with the week’s media analysis.

It felt amazing to see the picture I took printed on one of the first few pages of the local section and it was printed in colour! I am sure I was grinning like a Cheshire cat while filing that media clipping away.

In conclusion though, my advice is don’t believe in everything people tell you about their experience of interning. Everyone walks away with knowledge but not everyone’s journey will be the same. Just be yourself, keep an open mind and don’t be afraid to step up and ask for something to do if you end up just sitting there at your desk doing absolutely nothing important. In this case all I really did was to take the initiative and opportunities came my way. So I say, to all fellow PR393 students, head out there and show them what you’re made of!

Cheers,

Josephine Joeyna