Reflecting on my experience as a whole, I have to be honest
and say I don’t feel I was able to benefit from what my international
internship had the potential to offer. The
majority of my days were spent on excel updating contact databases and conducting data entry for the monthly reports for various clients. Hours upon hours upon hours of data
entry. After a straight month of data
entry every day, I cannot look at another spreadsheet again!
I understand the significance of contact databases to public
relations and the importance of keeping them up-to-date, but there is much more
to public relations than data entry. I
would have appreciated if just a bit more of my time was allocated to exploring
other aspects and tasks within the profession. Unfortunately I feel I was not
given the opportunity to make the most of being abroad and to learn and
practice public relations within an international context. I probably averaged only one day per week in
which I was able to engage with the outside world - beyond the office and in
person rather than through phone or email.
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| Internship summary of work |
Perhaps I wasn't honest enough in my discontent with the amount of my time allocated to data entry. Perhaps I should have asked my team leader for more variety in my tasks. Due to my position as an intern, I struggled to do so. I felt it would make me appear unappreciative for the great opportunity I had been given, to be sent abroad to intern for an award winning agency! I also wondered who would do the work if I didn't do it. Our team was only small, our team leader, one public relations officer and myself. So I pushed through, delivering to the best of my ability.
Yes I am grateful for the opportunity. Yes I did learn a lot. Yes there were times I was allowed to venture
from my desk. And no, I would not have
changed my experience for an internship back home. My team members did bring me along to client meetings,
which I thoroughly enjoyed. I tried to
make the most of these opportunities by contributing to discussions, sharing
ideas and studying the behavior of the professionals on my team and the client
to grasp a greater understanding of client relations in practice. I was invited to attend a client pitch with
the CEO which I wrote about in an earlier post (see Pitching Perfectly) and my
supervisor often took me with her to drop off products for review or scan magazines
in news agencies for coverage on clients.
I felt I learnt much more about the public relations profession in the
short and infrequent interactions with clients and the Malaysian media than I
did completing weeks of data entry.
I chose to study public relations and took on this
opportunity abroad because I am very much a people person. I like to meet new people, share ideas and engage
with others. I had hoped to meet a range
of people and engage in person with others in the Malaysian business world, and
at times I did. However the majority of
people I spoke to were those working within the office and the receptionists I
was calling in order to fill in contact databases. But I really hope eight hours days of data entry is
not what is in stall for me in a public relations career.
Georgia
15560340
