My Social Media and Marketing Internship Experience

This fall, I was fortunate to intern with The Career Development Center as the Social Media and Marketing intern. I have so much to reflect on from my time interning there; I have grown as an individual throughout this opportunity. Learning how to advertise and market the Career Development Center for the career counselors has helped enhance my marketing skills drastically. Coming into this internship, I had no idea on what steps had to be taken to advertise such an essential resource on campus.

My time spent at the Career Development Center has challenged me to dig deeper to finds ideas deep down inside which at times would be very frustrating. I overcame this frustration by freeing my mind up and looking at things through a more different creative lens. I began to observe different universities Career Develop Centers social media accounts which allowed me to see ways to improve all of Purchase CDC social media accounts. At times it would be very overwhelming because it was so much content to observe but, it was fascinating to see how these other Career Develop Centers gained their audiences attention. Before getting this internship, I never realized how much attention to detail is required to ensure that the message you are creating is getting to the target audience. The target audience for the Career Development Center is the college students at Purchase College. Every post that was made on the social media sites had to be appealing to students. The ability to put myself in the target audience’s shoes to imagine how he or she might perceive a social media post was interesting and equally challenging. It allowed me to think all of the posts through to make sure it was appealing to students who were viewing them. I believe that the skills I gained from this internship can help me in the future. I can manage different social media outlets now and post engaging post to a broad audience. Many jobs will treasure this skill due to our social media dominant era.

The whole team at the Career Development Center is very talented and knowledgeable in what they do, in turn, generous with their time when giving students information on different job and internship opportunities. They always want to put students in the best position to succeed, that’s why they are one of the best resources on campus. I really enjoyed covering students Tuesdays, which was a post on Instagram every Tuesday asking student’s here at Purchase their basic info such as their name, major, and projected year of graduation. Along with asking them what’s their future career goal, and what were the courses if any that influenced them to pursue this career. I made a lot of good connections while doing Student Tuesday’s; I met students that had a lot in common with and we shared many enjoyable memories that we encountered at Purchase. I have learned that a supportive environment is conducive while interning and it isn’t something to take for granted. Team meetings in the office were very insightful; it allowed me and the other interns to get creative and share our fantastic ideas. We spent a lot of time creating the Grad Fair Expo event, this was a big task, but we fought through all the lengthy discussions and meetings to make sure that this event was a success. There has never been a dull moment throughout this internship; I always got a chance to have fun whether it was sitting at information tables sharing valuable information about upcoming events, or even creating a future post for the social media outlets.

The level of creativity that this position allows someone to have is something that I never imagined a job could have. I will take away many vital lessons from this internship; I am glad that I had so many great opportunities for growth and learning within this position. I will look back at my time at the Career Development Center with fond memories. I am thankful for all the connections I have gained from being an intern there.

Works Cited

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