NEXT: REAL LIFE!

Hello everyone,

I hope you still are enjoying your internships and that the last few weeks are not taking your breathe away. I must say these few last weeks have been the most stressful in my entire university period, and it does not seem to stop here! But the good thing is that after the 15th of November, - I am done! Yay for me, and for the rest of you that are graduating!

Today my blog won’t be too much about that tasks that I do daily during my internship, but rather about transferring what I have learnt to real life, and making the best out of it! It will be more about how to use the internship as much as it can possibly be worth, and I believe I have just done exactly that!

Recently, (in early September) I applied for a job (the one and only job I have applied for!) I saw announced on Twitter (!). The job was for a large and renowned travel company based where I am from (Norway) and the position was to be their marketing and PR person – a dream job for someone like me who LOVES travelling and wants to work within marketing/PR. - But the ad asked for marketing/pr education, marketing experience, social media experience, event experience, experience in developing campaigns etc etc…and by the first look of it, it was daunting! My first thought was that it would be an amazing job but I would never ever be good enough for it!

Then, after reading through it again I saw that most of the experience they wanted was things I was doing, or was going to be doing more of in my internship at the Foundation. I ended up thinking about it, and on the due date I submitted my resume and a cover letter clearly outlining the similarities of my work experience here and what they were looking for. And oh well, you probably already guessed it, but a month later they called and said they wanted me for an interview. They said that to be honest – they had started on their stack of resumes for the second time after being through a lot of unsuccessful interviews. My resume was not their first pick, but they liked the thought of having a younger candidate, and my internship sounded very relevant!

Being here and them being there resulted in interviews through Skype, and after being grilled through two one-hour sessions and an extensive reference check – I suddenly had the job! I am so happy and this is a dream job I never thought I would have any chance of getting. They even fly me back for training in Norway in December and back here so I can have my Christmas Holidays here!

I guess what I wanted to say with this (except from a bit of need for announcement haha) is that I am almost 100 % sure I would not have gotten this job without my internship. Even though it is only one day a week and does not go into the deepest issues and challenges; it gives such an amazing opportunity to learn something about “everything”. Best of all – it gives you an honest chance to refer back to work experiences you have actually had in real life and not only at university when applying for a job.

My supervisor here also provided me with a great reference that I am sure helped a lot as well. Not only did it mean a lot to me that she wrote it when requested from the organisation, but all her warm words and descriptions certainly works as a motivator for me to nail these last weeks both at my internship, but also at university!

Because next out is real life!!

Nina