Name: Lauren Vespa
Year in School: senior
Major: journalism and mass communication
Position: account service intern, Two Rivers Marketing
I knew on my first day at Two Rivers Marketing this internship was going to be different. My ambassador picked me up, gave me an office tour and introduced me to coworkers. I immediately had a familiar face in the agency and was later reintroduced to my intern supervisor, whom I’d interviewed with. She had put together my ‘Great First Week’ schedule that mapped out my first five days. This was to ensure I was at ease and had made the right choice in accepting this internship. She also had my summer roughly planned out with which teams I’d be working with and has stayed in constant contact with me.
This is the first internship where I get to specify exactly what I want to work on. During the interview process, they actively asked where I wanted to work within the agency. Then, after accepting the job, they circled back to confirm those and made sure the teams were prepared for my arrival. This was the most structure I had ever had starting an internship, and I was (and still am) loving it. I felt so welcomed and was able to meet with professionals in all disciplines of the agency. I was then given real-time projects to work on. I’ve written a press release for a client, contributed to media team projects, reformatted a client’s YouTube channel and more.
Traditionally, companies hire interns to a specific department with a specific title, just with "intern" attached. Now, technically my official title is "account service intern." But, at Two Rivers Marketing I have the opportunity to get my feet wet within various teams across the agency. I call it a "full-service internship at a full-service agency."
A true learning experience
From working with these teams, I have learned about industries and companies I had never heard of before. For example, I can explain what trace minerals are and how they can help livestock farmers, I can explain the difference between a skid-steer loader and a compact track loader and I now have a mini dictionary of acronyms in my head. What I’m trying to say is, keep me in mind on trivia nights if you have the phone-a-friend option.
Other than this "random" knowledge, I’ve also gotten a front-row seat to see exactly how the agency world works through the projects I’ve been given. One of my favorites was being given the opportunity to write a company profile to appear in a trade magazine. I was invited to shadow a coworker while he interviewed the owner of the company and was told we were featuring them in our client’s custom publication. Then, our PR team pitched a related story to a trade magazine, who happily accepted. My coworker gave direction on what angle to write the piece from and explained the workflow of these types of projects. I got straight to work and was able to send follow-up questions to better piece together the story. To say I’m ecstatic to have this piece in my portfolio is an understatement.
What’s next?
As I continue my adventure with Two Rivers Marketing, I’ll be able to spend time with the editorial and digital teams before I dive into my last year at ISU. While I haven’t quite narrowed down my answer to the million-dollar question of what I want to do after graduation, I do know one thing: At the end of the summer it’s not a goodbye to the agency world, it’s a see you later.
Vote for this blog post in Round 2 of the 2018 Greenlee Summer Intern Blogging Competition. Voting opens at 11:59 p.m. CST on August 8 and closes at 11:59 p.m. CST on August 15. The author of the post that receives the most votes will receive the $50 Amazon gift card.