First Day As A PR Intern

Yesterday was my first day of my first internship. I am working for CMU Public Relations and Marketing as a publications intern.

The first thing I had to do was review the publications I would be working on and writing for. At 9 a.m., I sat in on a staff meeting. After the meeting, I returned to my desk and continued reviewing the publications I would be working on. My main project for the summer will be CMU Welcomes You, a publication sent to incoming students. There are also other publications that I may be writing for such as the Professional and Viewpoint.

My supervisor, Dan, asked me to write down five goals of what I wanted to get out of the internship. He then wrote five goals of what he wanted to help me get out of the internship. We switched papers and amazingly we had very similar goals.

After lunch, I received my first assignment, a feature story about Paul Pridgeon, next year’s SGA President. I cannot give much more information than that right now. Although I want to blog about my experiences as an intern, I need to be careful about how much information I release.

I prepared my interview questions and tracked down his phone number. I called and left a message on his phone and I emailed him.

I spent much of the day just becoming familiar with the publications and brainstorming ideas for CMU Welcomes You. I also started the feature story, using what information I already had from press releases.

Paul called me this morning and we sat up the interview for Thursday between noon and 1 p.m. It might cut into my lunch hour, but I was planning on taking a lunch with me anyway.

My plan for Thursday is to interview Paul and begin writing the article. It needs to be about 400 words and is due the next Thursday at 9 a.m.

In the morning, if I am not given any other assignments, I will need to track down another contact for the article. I had contacted a fellow PRSSA member, but she had dropped the minor I was writing about. I asked if she could suggest anyone else for the article, so hopefully she will have returned my email. My back-up plan is to use Facebook to find another student with that minor.

Lesson of the Day: Setting goals can help keep you on track, but knowing the goals of your supervisor will help you better understand what you should be doing and whether or not the internship will be compatible.