Hi! My name is Evangeline and I am a final year Communication Science student at the UvA. From the beginning of March 2024 – the end of June 2024, I was interning at Bank Central Asia, Indonesia’s largest private bank.
During this internship, I was placed in the Corporate Communication & Social Responsibility division. This division is primarily separated into two; corporate communication is focused on maintaining the company’s notable reputation while corporate social responsibility focuses on integrating social, cultural, and environmental concerns into the company’s actions. What I really valued during my internship was how hands-on the jobs were; I felt like I was taught practical skills that I never knew before.
On a daily basis, I assists in jobs like helping to set up the teleprompter and camera for directorial shoots, writing scripts for the shoots, meeting with the press to cover new topics (usually update launch, sometimes even for crisis management), make content for the social media platforms, brainstorm ideas for events both offline and online, and basically helping the team to ensure that BCA has a notable reputation.
During my internship, I work mostly with my colleagues of the same division. But besides that, I had the privilege of working and networking with external parties such as Indonesia’s news outlets like Kompas, CNN Indonesia, TribunNews, etc whenever covering an column about a BCA event. Other than news outlets, I also got to work closely with social media agencies, the most notable one being Epilog – a social media agency – to collaborate in executing online events for BCA.
I noticed since the beginning that BCA always has events whether it be professional company events or personal company events. Moreover, I also noticed how the permanent employees are very loyal to the company, and this is why I decided to base my research on company events and its correlation to satisfaction and loyalty rates.
Based on my internship experience I know that corporate communication is a domain that I want to pursue, especially dealing with media relations and the press. The UvA internship program is great to give students a practical experience and to let students try out roles in communication science to give them a glimpse of what they want to pursue in the future.