Work Experience Week 2

What have you been working on for your second week, Ethan?

My second week has been a lot more varied than last week. There has been a lot of preparation for the Hamble Festival, with signs that have needed laminating, and a tombola that I helped setup.I also attended a meeting for the Oxford Street Traders where I took the minutes. It was a really enjoyable experience and it taught me even more about what goes on behind the scenes of marketing, especially when you’re speaking to the client.When it came to writing this week I completed two pieces for the Southampton Guide, one being about historical monuments/places to visit in the city, and the other being about autumn events in the city. Then I completed a piece for Hoteliers about Christmas shopping in the Hampshire area. As someone who is not usually from this area these pieces were really interesting to write as it allowed me to learn a lot about the city and the surrounding area, whilst also gaining more experience in writing.This afternoon I am off to Hamble for a site visit to prepare for the Hamble Valley Festival of Food, which I am looking forward to helping out at tomorrow!

What's been your favourite task that you've worked on this week?

I’d have to say that attending the Oxford Street meeting was my favourite thing so far this week. Listening to everyone coming up with ideas on how to promote the street and discussing what works, and what doesn’t, was really insightful and something they you can’t learn about in a classroom.I am also really looking forward to the Festival of Food tomorrow, as it should be different to everything I’ve done so far, and I think I’ll come away with some valuable skills.

What are you going to take from this experience?

I’m not sure if I could pin down one particular thing that I will take from this experience because I have learnt a lot of life skills, and experience of what the working world is like. Specifically what a career in marketing could look like, since (like I mentioned in my last blog post) it was actually quite an enigma to me, I knew about the outcome of good marketing, but had no real idea of what went in to actually doing it.

Do you have any advice to anyone else looking for a career in Journalism/PR/marketing?

My best piece of advice would be to try everything. When I chose to do Journalism at University I never thought to look into Marketing, but this work experience has shown me that it is something I am interested in.Also, always look for opportunities to do work experience, whenever you can. You get to experience first hand what a career is like and learn new skills at the same time, and there is no harm with at least giving it a try!