Get ready for a heavy text post!

In 2015 I had the opportunity to have two internships. One was amazing and the other was not so amazing. I thought I would share my experiences with my internships, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The first internship I had was a summer internship at a startup marketing group that I was pretty excited about since it was in the entertainment industry which is an area I am looking to go into after school.

When I started I realized the entertainment area was nightlife which wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from the  website. Nightlife is not an industry I am interested in, I am a big homebody and am not one to be seen at a club. I found myself not being interested in what I was doing but I tried to push through and get as much as I could from the experience.

The biggest issue I had during this experience was with my boss. The CEO of the startup was someone my age who is in the same year as me and hasn’t even graduated college yet. There is nothing wrong with starting a business while still in college but I felt as though he didn’t know exactly what he was doing or how to manage another person and it was hard to learn from someone who is still learning. When I asked questions about assignments he often made me feel stupid for not already knowing what to do or just told me to google it. I mean an internship is about learning, and not from google. He also would send me home early most days because he had nothing for me to do. It was obvious that he wasn’t ready to be managing another person and it ended up being a waste of time for both of us.

After finishing my not so great internship I was searching the internet for a new intern opportunity going into my senior year. I finally came across a online magazine / blog internship that looked promising. I was very happy when I got the internship for the blog as a social media manager and content creator.

This was a vastly different experience than my first experience. My boss had a lot of experience in the magazine business and was very knowledgeable about social media and how to make a brand. Right off the bat I had a better feeling about this internship because it was something I was interested in (DUH! I have a lifestyle / beauty blog) and my boss had a lot more to offer me. She taught me a lot about effective social media management and how to write a blog post that will attract a target market.

My two internships were vastly different experiences but I learned from both of them. My “entertainment” internship opened me up to different industries I never thought of before ( and definitely don’t want to work in) and saw some behind the scenes of nightclub promotions. It also taught me about different management styles and that a relaxed manager isn’t actually a good thing. My lifestyle internship showed me how a successful online magazine works and how to make good, compelling content as well as successfully using social media to advertise (which is where the world of advertising is going).

Sorry for the long-winded post but I wanted to share some of my experiences with you. Have you ever had a bad internship experience?

See you soon!

x Emily