My Experience at Marketing Eye
After just completing my first year of university studying media and communications, I didn’t know the first thing about what the world of marketing involved. Having only ever taken two advertising classes, I knew almost nothing about what a marketing firm did let alone how they operated in the industry. That was until I found myself scrolling through Indeed.com, trying to find a way to fill in my time over the next three months. At a time when every second person was trying to find a job or internship, restless after the abundance of lockdowns we endured in 2021, every opportunity I was either turned down or was one in 500 applicants. Marketing Eye was no different, an application I thought I would never hear back from. Or so that’s what I thought. 12 weeks later I am left to reflect on my time working as a Marketing Eye Intern learning from and working alongside a team of dedicated, passionate, and hardworking marketing executives.
After returning to Melbourne, having spent six years living overseas in the United States, my familiarity with the public transport system was a distant yet fond memory. As my internship starting date neared, I was both nervous yet exhilarated by being able to reassociate myself with a city I had once loved. The thrilling feeling of being surrounded by the early morning bustling of Malvern Road, as executives and professionals hurry off to their 9-5 jobs, and me —a newly 20-year-old— now a part of them for two days a week.
Due to having no prior marketing experience, I thought I was well and truly over my head. However, the culture Marketing Eye has created ensured I left all my worries at the door. After spending a whole year completing meaningless university essays and quizzes all for a letter grade and percentage, being able to work on tasks that truly mattered to not only the team at Marketing Eye but for the countless clients, encouraged and inspired me to produce higher quality work than I had in the past. My daily tasks were rarely the same two days in a row and consisted of simple social media engagement to writing content for overseas companies. This allowed me to have a varied experience, empowering me to learn a variety of skills across different client industries. Each task forced me to think outside of anything I knew about marketing, research topics that had never crossed my mind, and expand my knowledge in ways no university subject ever could.
However, as the COVID pandemic caused workplaces to limit their staff in office buildings, my internship experience both started and finished with me working from home, a matter that was both out of the team's hands as well as my own. Although working remotely meant I wasn’t surrounded by the friendliness and enthusiastic nature of the office, it forced me to be adaptable and work more independently, skills that are crucial in the ever-changing world we are currently living in. Despite being in the confines of my own home with the inevitable internet issues and skype delays, the marketing executives still made my work and tasks a priority, ensuring that I was always getting practical feedback and answering any question that was to arise.
As I look back on the last 12 weeks, as someone who had is just about to embark on their second year of university, and still very unsure of what the future brings, my biggest takeaway from this internship program is that when you jump headfirst into opportunities you may not know a lot about, you can learn so much more. If you are willing to put yourself out of your comfort zone and have the opportunity to learn new things, you are going to leave with more experience, connections, and skills than you did when you started.
If you are a marketing, communications, or media student looking for an internship full of meaningful connections and important life skills, I highly recommend Marketing Eye’s internship program.
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