Blog

July 2010 – Nicole Drury writes…

My experiences of my work experience fortnight

Starting work experience is hard, you basically feel more nervous than you ever have mainly because you’re starting something that you’re not used to and meeting people you’ve never met. Everyone told me that once I’d been there a few days I’d settle in and as always they were right as soon as I arrived Penny, Amy and the rest of the team made me feel very welcome and as the day went on I felt less nervous.

On my first day at Project PR I attended a meeting for Ipswich Building Society where I got to see how a campaign was put in to action, which gave me an insight in to the planning that needs to be done, for instance what to do for the launch, whether to have a lunch or maybe invest in celebrity endorsement. It was interesting to see that social media such as Twitter and facebook was a common way to up clients profiles. I really got to see how much work PR is and how your mind has to quickly switch from one project to the other. So all in all my first day went well, I’m still not sure whether to take this up for my future carer but I will see in the upcoming days.

On my second day I attended 3 meetings, this being the point that I realised meetings were a big part of PR having attended 4 within my first 2 days. The first meeting was with all the staff where they discussed the work they all had, which was a lot! Everyone had lots to do and some had soon coming deadlines this showed me that PR is a busy profession that requires a lot of work and focus. The second meeting was with Charles and Aisleen who were briefing me on Ford their biggest client for me to carry out some work for them, researching volunteering opportunities. The last meeting was with Ipswich Women’s Aid this is where I got to see how they handled new clients, and what they did to help them, they discussed branding and how it needed to be improved and how they wanted to expand their organisation.

The main part that interested me was the branding because I like being creative so maybe design is another way for me to go…

Thursday I spent my day doing research in Women’s consumer magazines to find relevant articles about holidays, writing down what magazine and what journalist wrote the feature. I was doing this so that Amy knew the best magazines to send some work to. I also was keeping a record of Agony aunts and problem pages collecting the contact details so that Helen could ask whether they would direct some of their readers to over eaters anonymous helping to up their profile.

Attending an event was one of the best parts of my week because I got to see the final result of planning that had taken place. The event was for the opening of new housing developments in Milden Hall and it all went very smoothly the MP made an appearance and declared the opening by planting a tree, 3 photographers attended and took several shots of the day. After the opening everyone went down to the Village hall where lunch was provided, it was a relaxed warm event and it went very well.

By the end of my first week I had learned a lot about PR however I was still unsure whether it was what I wanted to do I guess that’s the trouble with being a teenager you can’t ever quite make your mind up about what to do, especially when it’s about the future.