As a kid, I dreamt of having a quintessential 9-5 job: an office with a desk, and the charm of retro landline phones ringing all day. This fantasy was woven from the American movies and TV shows that painted such a captivating picture. Of course, I soon realized that it wasn’t as idyllic as I had been led to believe. I was eager to experience it for myself nonetheless. Shamefully, my first ‘real’ job turned out to be this internship. I had no idea what to expect, considering the limited practical knowledge I had under my belt. Weeks prior to even finding an internship, I remember watching ‘day in the life as an intern’ YouTube videos to get a glimpse of what’s to come.
Then the day arrived—my first day at the office. I was nervously uncertain about everything: what to wear, how professional to act, and whether to hug or shake hands with my supervisor. But like all things, the day eventually passed. Despite all the information thrown at me, I went home feeling content and eagerly looked forward to returning the next day. The first few days of my internship were relatively quiet. I was getting acquainted with all my coworkers and the various office tools. Then, suddenly, the workload began. As the social media intern, I was tasked with managing a total of 13 accounts in 7 different languages—none of which I spoke. Fortunately, with the variety of translation tools available today, navigating this challenge became more manageable. However, overseeing such a large number of accounts presented its own set of challenges. I had to ensure I didn’t post content in the wrong language or rely on robotic translations. With my worst fear being accidentally posting something meant for my personal account on the companies’ social media. But on the bright side, I believe this task immensely accelerated the development of my organizational skills. An added bonus is my newfound ability to differentiate between the 7 languages I worked with everyday (picked up a few new words too).
But the internship wasn’t just about fretting over potential slip-ups. It opened doors for me to delve into video editing, graphic design, and nurture my overall creativity. Within the first few weeks of my time at AOC & Philips, I was entrusted with recording and editing a demonstration video that would loop on monitors at business-to-business events, since I had some background in video editing. The process stretched across the majority of my internship, involving hours of animating and recording, all of which had to be replicated in three different resolutions. It meant countless late-night skirmishes with Adobe Premiere Pro and my laptop nearly giving out. Yet, witnessing the fruits of my labor made every challenge worthwhile. Not to mention the fact that my team trusted me with such a significant task. Throughout the entirety of my internship, I was treated as a peer and felt as though my contributions were truly valued. Overall, this internship taught me how easy it is to adapt to new situations and how inflated some of my fears were. From being a student all my life to embracing a 9-5 job, I’ve developed a new level of confidence in navigating both work responsibilities and interpersonal relationships — an outcome that would not have occurred without this experience. So maybe, just maybe, my younger self was onto something.