The Nottingham Post reported recently that demand for university interns to work at businesses in Nottingham looking to tap into student expertise has almost doubled this year. A total of 48 organisations have taken on more than 80 interns this summer, almost double the number from last year, thanks to the Nottingham Internship Scheme, run by the University of Nottingham. The scheme is designed to help local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) benefit from interns, while giving students the chance to gain unique and varied work experience.
We caught up with one intern, Laura Sage, to find out what inspired her to choose a summer internship and what it’s like working at Creative Quarter-based company, Distinction.
Laura Sage
For the past two months I've been working as a Copywriter and a Digital Marketer at Distinction, an integrated digital agency in Nottingham. I've just finished my second year of an English BA at the University of Nottingham, and have taken this internship during my summer holidays before I go back to University for my third and final year.
I've known that I wanted to work in marketing or advertising for a long time – I've always had a creative instinct and enjoyed writing and coming up with ideas. I have a great deal of enthusiasm for many subject areas and it's hard for me to research a topic and not find something of interest. Unfortunately for me, I'm from a small town in Kent where opportunities regarding marketing and advertising are few and far between, unless you're willing to make the expensive and impractical commute to London.
When I came to University in Nottingham, I went along to as many of the 'spotlight' careers events as I could, and was simultaneously motivated and terrified at the career ladder I saw ahead of me. Hearing from speakers who had found success in marketing, advertising and PR, it seemed as if what you needed to succeed was either a tonne of experience, or a tonne of confidence. You needed to be the type of person that wouldn't be shy of calling up a company and selling yourself to them in the hope of a job/internship offer. I have often struggled with confidence, not feeling as if I'm capable of what everybody around me assures me I am. And in the first year of my English degree, I had little to offer in the way of experience outside catering and bartending jobs.
Although I felt apprehensive about my career prospects I didn't let this fear of being left behind discourage me. I knew I would just have to work with the opportunities I had at my disposal, so when a position on the Marketing, Advertising and Design Society's Committee became available, I threw myself into it, not knowing if I had any hope of getting this role. When I was voted in as the Publicity Secretary I was overjoyed because it meant that not only could I gain valuable experience and knowledge of the industry for myself, I would be able to reach out to others coming from a similar position to my own and help and encourage them to strive for success in these creative industries.
Thanks to my regular visits to the University Careers service, which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone looking for careers guidance, I found out about the Internship Scheme that works with local agencies and companies in order to provide fantastic internship opportunities for Nottingham University students. I saw that Distinction were looking for a Copywriter intern. It seemed to be everything I hoped for in an internship – at an agency whose work and ethos I had respect and admiration for, and taking on a role that allowed me to play to my strengths of creativity and writing.
I am now and will always be deeply grateful to Henry France and James Bloor, who conducted the interviews, for seeing the potential in me and giving me the chance to show them how hard I can work and the talent and ambition that make me who I am. Thanks to the past few months I feel securely confident that I have gained a significant amount of experience that will propel me into wherever my career takes me next: whether that’s another internship or a permanent job.
Distinction owners, Greg and James Bloor, who are always looking to add new faces to the Distinction Wall.
From my first week at Distinction I worked closely with the other three interns and we were involved in a really exciting internal project. A proud moment for me was seeing our combined efforts come to life in the interactive timeline we produced for Distinction's 15th birthday. In the process of this exercise we learnt the difficult lesson of not becoming too attached to the work you produce, because at the blink of an eye the brief can be changed and you have to rework your ideas or even start from scratch. However, this helped us to come up with even better ideas and become more open minded about what we could achieve.
Thanks to my internship at Distinction I have gained extensive experience in writing for different audiences, along with various marketing skills that I never knew I would be involved with. I have taken part in Kentico training (a CMS platform Distinction are partners with), as well as Google Analytics and AdWords. These things will make me a more attractive candidate for future job applications. I am also much more prepared for job interviews: in the past I found myself dreading interviews because I became so nervous that I found it hard to produce any words, let alone convince the interviewer that I was the right person for the job. I know now that if I relax and view the experience as conversation where each of us wants to know more about each other, then I have nothing to be afraid of. If the job is suited to my experience and strengths then I will get it. If not, then I have lost nothing because there will be an even more perfect opportunity around the corner.
My time with Distinction is soon to come to a close and I will be returning to University. I'm excited to be going back to my nine weekly contact hours after the daily grind of 9-5! I think now, even more than before, I will be finding ways to make the most of my free time. Having a structured day is more valuable than many students realise – even if you have no lectures for the day, spending some time at the library reading over your work and preparing for upcoming assessments is really useful. As a student it is very easy to spend all of your free time relaxing and socialising. We're not likely to find ourselves with this unusually high level of free time at any other point in our lives (except perhaps when we finally retire aged 95), so it's a shame not to make the most of it. When I go back to Uni in September I am thinking about taking on some evening language classes and I will continue to climb and blog in my free time.
I've had some interesting summers in my time – attempting to camp in Death Valley with my family in 2012 is something I can't decide whether is a highlight or lowlight, and being forced to climb a mountain before breakfast wasn't my cup of tea aged 12 – but this summer has trumped them all. I've gone from a glorified schoolgirl with no idea what working life really entailed to someone who is prepared to start work and excited about all the possibilities that lie at my feet. I am now that person who is constantly sending their friends internship openings and pressing them to send me their CV so that I can review it and give them pointers. So hit me up if you want help – I'm on LinkedIn ;)"
