Week 16: A Juggling Act

Week 16 was a week of frustration followed by relief. I’ve been juggling so many activities the past month that something finally had to give, and that something was working at the store. I hadn’t been falling behind in my school work, but I’d been on the edge of ‘getting by,’ and I’m not exactly a livin’ on the edge kind of gal. I wasn’t getting any satisfaction out of working anymore, and I could feel start to affect my school work, so it had to go. In the name of recognising priorities and keeping with my New Year’s Resolution,* I’m devoting as much effort as I can solely to classes and my internship because those are the things make me happy.

Another major frustration: technology. I’ve used computers for so long that I can appreciate broadband because I remember how slow dial-up was, yet I still repress the urge to throw my laptop against a wall when it takes longer than a minute for the hard drive to process. After attending the Pure London 2012 expo last Tuesday I had to make a video of the interview with designer Dana Kleinert. Let’s just say it’s been a few years since I’ve used iMovie and it wasn’t a fun 5 hours. The relief came when it turned out the British Council has an iMac for graphics work, and that it wasn’t just me that was bad at movie editing, it was my computer.

Onto the good stuff…

Week 15: Diving In

*Sorry kids, there may never be a photo collage for this week…watch this space if things change on that front*

You know an internship is good when on the first day you actually contribute something. This week I felt insanely accomplished. Class on Monday, internship Tuesday and Wednesday, work on Thursday and meetings on Friday. On Tuesday I dove right in at the British Council, getting case studies ready to post about the digital publishing industry of India, one about video game production in Brazil, Sri Lanka’s 2011 Design Festival, and a final about a workshop at Philips Fashion Week in Ljubljana helping to spread the innovative ideas and success of British fashion. I also acquainted myself with the CCE’s social media platforms and developed some ideas to harness Twitter and promote the Young Creative Entrepreneurs (YCE) programme.

The thing that really struck me from preparing the case studies, news stories and researching the various events is how much the topics of our core module this semester manifest across the cultural and creative industries.

Week 14: Ready, Set, Go!

This semester is by far the crazier of the two and I very cleverly scheduled myself to have two presentations on the same Monday (tomorrow) and a third the following. Strategically this was so I’d have plenty of time after Reading Week to write up my research proposal for research methods. In actuality it has meant a jam packed week of meetings and readings, but the payoff is feeling satisfied about getting it all done with time to indulge in my granny hobbies via a trip to the Newark Antiques Fair this past Friday.

As for the British Council, I met with the whole CCE team on Tuesday and the other interns who all seem very nice and incredibly smart, so on-the-job learning will not be in short supply. Each team member discussed the projects they’re working to see if anything piqued our interest in particular, that way each of us will have the opportunity to help with the programmes we’re really interested in. In some ways I already feel like a valued member of the team and that when I do get started I’ll be contributing something important. One of the things that stuck with me from the meeting on Tuesday that as interns we are the eyes and ears of what’s going on in the industry.

Week 13: Internship Found!

I caught a big one!

Great news everybody…I got the internship at the British Council!

It took a while to get the process started, but after going in for the interview and waiting for a decision to be made the turn around time was one week on the dot. I’m going in next Tuesday to iron out all of the details, but what I do know so far is that I’ll be working 2.5 days a week on the web/communications efforts of the Cultural and Creative Economy team (which I will call the CCE from here on out since I’ll be writing quite a lot about them!). Along with myself, they have brought on two research/programme management interns – one from Goldsmiths and another who graduated from MA CCI last year – I am quite excited to be the only web intern though, as I’ll get that many more opportunities to write and curate about all of the interesting programmes and events that the CCE has going on.

Week 12: New Term, New Leads

Good week of progress in the world o’ internships. Had my interview with the British Council that I thought went really well and the position sounds amazing. Part web curation, part application of what we’re learning in class to the real world. They’ll let the interviewees know the middle of this week what their decision is, so I’m looking forward to Wednesday.

Meanwhile, I did as I promised and cold called a place to see if they have any positions. This tactic actually worked fairly well in at least getting a feeling for a company’s hiring outlook. I called VisitBritain to see if they had any internships and though they don’t have anything right now, I got to speak with someone in HR who had me send her an email detailing my schedule and what sort of position I was looking for. Afterwards she said she would circulate a note to see if anyone would have a position in the future. More progress!