#4: Time flies...

Hello guys,

Time flies!

Without realizing, it is the end of the semester again.

I believe you all have enjoyed and gained a lot of precious experience from your internship as much as I did. 

Although my intern period with Miri City Council is short, I miss my time there dreadfully already. The staff there are so fun to be together with, the office is always fill with jokes and laughter.

In this post, I am going to post up some photos taken during my last day of internship with MCC. Hopefully I can meet up with all these interesting good fellows again in the future!

A group photo with other interns at MCC with the Mayor.

Receiving souvenir from Mr Tay and my colleagues. 

When my last day was going to end, I was given this big book and asked by my colleague to write my feedback.

...and guess what, I have found my lecturer who has taught me in my first year in this book also! :D

The book is filled with interns that come from different universities from every corner of Malaysia. It is fun to read what others have wrote and glad to see that all interns seemed to like MCC as much as I do.

From the internship, I have learnt a great lot from my supervisor and colleagues. The precious experiences gained shall never be forgot. Here are a few tips I have learnt:

• Never be afraid to ask questions - I am a very timid person and I tend to talk as little as possible. Yet, by doing so won't do any good especially when you are given a task and you really wish to do it as good as possible! There is no wrong in clarifying your tasks again and it is always a smart choice to ask if you are in doubt, instead of just do it as you 'think' the way it should be done.
• Smile - A smile is an international language everyone can understand. By putting up a friendly smile on your face, you might help to brighten other's day!
• Take note on important things - When you are being assigned on something important or being briefed on something, take your pen and write it down on your notebook. You will never know, it might come in useful someday! I am glad I took note on things I think it is important as the notes have helped me a lot in doing my internship report.
• Build up good relationships with people - Supervisor, colleagues, security guards, visitors of the department... anyone! I think we should start networking right now as we can learn a lot of knowledge and experiences from these people before we stepped out into the working environment. 

That's the end of my final post. Hope you all are doing fine with your internship job and good luck in your report! ;)

My Last Day at the PTA.

Wow, I can't believe how fast the last four weeks have gone. Today's my last day with the PTA and I'm sad to be leaving the great girls and guy in Corp Comms.

During my time here I've worked on a wide range of projects, from article writing for internal communications to policy writing to organising a mini event. I learnt so much about internal communications and how important they are to an organisation, especially one the size of the PTA (who employ over 1400 people!).

One of the best things I got to do was attend some community workshops organised by the PTA.

One of the programs I went to was the Re:Cycle2 bike project. Ten primary school students aged seven to 13 from Midland are meeting once a week at the Police and Citizens Youth Club to participate in workshops teaching them how to rebuild bicycles. Hundreds of bikes are abandoned at train stations and are stored by the PTA. The children will work on rebuilding and restoring two bikes each for eight weeks and at the end of the program will give one to charity and get to keep the other. It was fantastic to see how happy these kids were working on their bikes.

I also went along to the first 2011 Urban Art workshop. This is the fourth year this project has been run by the PTA as part of their efforts to reduce graffiti. A bunch of kids attend lessons hosted by a professional urban artist and will later develop murals and graffiti art screens.

I don't think people realise these kind of workshops are organised and funded by the PTA. The PTA really try to give back to the community and engage youth in activities.

So today I came in with cupcakes to share and we had a little final day morning tea. I thanked them all for having me, I really did learn so much from them. They actually gave me a thank you present (lucky me!) and they really made me feel like I'd been part of the team. I also sent around a thank you email at the end of the day.

I'd encourage anyone looking for a placement to consider the applying for one at the PTA. When I first got the interview I thought it was going to be quite boring, I didn't realise how much the PTA do and my time here certainly wasn't boring! I've learnt so much about public relations both internally and coming out of a government organisation.

Now... just that report to do!

Less time, more experience

Though it took me time to find a training placement, I was able to go into my industrial training at last which was short than I predicted. Despite the fact that it was short, many will not believe me when I say I had a great time at PDQ and I have learnt a lot. Its end of my industrial training and will now practice what I went through at PDQ. Before going into my industrial training I had set some goals and objectives for myself which some were achieved whereas others were not due to time taken during the internship.
My goals were:
-To enhance my understanding of media relations.
-To comprehend professional ethics, values and beliefs in Public Relations
- To relate the information learned in the classroom to the work atmosphere
Whereas my objectives were:
-inscribe a media release or any piece that gets published.
- Write a newsletter and pitch document
- Plan for an event and
-Write a report on anything related to Public Relations or PR based.
I was competent to attain my goals but the objectives lacked behind, like I was not exposed to writing media release, newsletters but I was able to write a pitch document which was well approved and I ended up compiling some reports which is the same as writing report. Communication was my daily task because I did everything with the help of my supervisors whereby I would ask where its not clear and would sit for brainstorming and briefings on my next task.

Industrial training makes someone more grown-up, more proficiently elegant, and edifies you things further than what you can learn in the classroom. I appreciate my education and I hope I am likely to perform better academically after having worked. I would say the little that I have acquired while at PDQ will be useful when I get my permanent job because it will be a matter of looking back and reflect whatever I did during my industrial training.

I learnt a lot despite the fact that it was for a short term, communication, meeting deadlines, writing sills which I have improved on, some few PR practices and abiding by the given rules. I would say there is a difference between what is being taught in class and what is done at industrial training because of practicals and theories. Hope to use the experienced gained.
All the best to those who are still doing their training.

By Tiny Diakanyeng Tshukudu