How My Internship Experience is Preparing Me to Graduate
At the beginning of summer, my internship hopes were crushed. I was told by several companies that they weren’t accepting interns due to the pandemic. Although this isn’t an uncommon story for college students right now, I was devastated. I had to start from scratch and pursue other opportunities. I needed to work in my field of study.
At 11:00PM on a Wednesday night, I got a call from the pastor at my church.
“Hey Carson, I saw your Facebook post and we would love to have you join our team as a Media Communications Assistant starting in June”.
I was unbelievably grateful. This blog is about my experience in this role so far, and how I’m using my college classroom skills in the “real” world.
1: The Challenges
I’m going to be honest: I highly underestimated the challenges. I began with a lot of confidence in my skills, and quickly learned that lectures will never replace, but only supplement real life experience. Throughout my time at Redemption Church MI, I have been managing social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), creating content for the church’s live-stream and graphic design (Canva, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects). The following list is composed of lessons and challenges I had to overcome:
1: Staying on-brand and keeping the target audience in mind.
2: Intentionality with posting.
3: Does high engagement accurately depict success?
4: Weighing output versus success.
5: Realizing that sometimes the work that I put in, doesn't yield the results that I hoped for. This is frustrating, but this will happen a lot in my career. I'm happy to realize it now!
6: Using social media scheduling platforms appropriately will be beneficial for travel and timing purposes.
These are only some of the lessons I have learned. The longer I continue, the more challenges and lessons I’m taught, thus preparing me for my career.
2: The Satisfaction
Although the list of challenges was lengthy, it’s worth mentioning some benefits of a paid internship.
1: Payment. There are many unpaid internships and I was lucky to secure a paid one. This makes it a lot easier to find motivation to work.
2: Completing your work. The simple act of doing work is satisfying. Putting effort into something you enjoy and completing it in a timely manner is of the utmost importance.
3: Feeling valued. The church elders make me feel valued and appreciated through their words of encouragement and positive attitudes. This has to be the most important. If I didn’t feel like I fit in at Redemption, the experience would be less impactful.
3: The Future
This is something I’m getting used to: not knowing. This is perfectly okay. We should feel comfortable with ambiguity, especially in college. We’re young with time to learn, to screw up and not be exactly where we wish we would be right now. Remain patient, calm and have a persevering spirit. Opportunities will come. Just watch!
About Carson:
Carson is a senior studying advertising, public relations, and digital studies. As the Team Lead at the Technology Showcase on campus at GVSU, Carson leads a team of 6 student workers. The showcase has 3-D printers and virtual reality for students to use! Carson’s favorite part about ad/pr is project management, social media, graphic design, and networking.
