The Finale

Today is my last day. Ten weeks came and went faster than I expected they would. In a few weeks school will be starting up and my senior year will be under way. The sooner the better. As I have expressed before graduation cannot come soon enough.

Interning is the best way to gain valuable experience in your chosen profession. Getting your foot in the door and learning the industry's "ins and outs" is priceless (literally). Now that I have logged over 600 hours as an intern I feel confident that I can hit the ground running once I graduate.

600 hours with a salary of $0/hour. Now add in travel expenses, lunches, happy hour tabs and the cost of tuition for the 9 credits I received and you get the meaning of sacrifice. I am happy I did it. It made me a better, yet "poorer" person.

I got a taste of what it will be like to be on the grind in Manhattan with a 9-5. I met people that will help me jumpstart my career and have already provided me with solid advice.

With that being said the system needs to change. Internships are necessary but what is not necessary is the University charging me the same rate for taking a class. My internship did not force them to put their hand in their pocket.

Colleges and Universities that encourage their students to participate in internships need to offer these credits at a lower cost while the employers provide a stipend for travel. If that is too much to ask, please, someone please prove me wrong. I realize that there are employers who do practice this but it should be part of the deal when the employer aquires an intern.

Wikopedia has a page that presents the different arguements.

Blogs have stormed the scene as the new form of media. This summer allowed me to dive into the process of using blogs to promote our client's new products and it is now somethin that I feel very comfortable doing. It was an experience that I couldn't get in a classroom. In fact, besides my 2nd level PR class where we used service learning to creat actual PR campaigns this internship has taught 10x more about public relations than any course I have taken.

Kim Hart of the Washington Post explained the new phenomenon in an article last Saturday. Blogger relations is a brand new avenue. Is it here to stay? Who knows but for the mean time those who have an understanding of it will have a leg up on those who do not.I heard a stat today that people in my generation will, on average, will spend 23.5 years of their life in front of a computer screen. Sad but true.

Remember the cake saga? You probably didn't find it all that funny but in the war room the soldiers had some good laughs over it.

Long story short, I finally got my cake. They missed my birthday and instead of giving me a send off lunch like past interns I got a cake. In reality, I dont want a cake. I especially don't want a cake at 4:30 on my last day when I was planning on saying my good-byes at 4:00. If I wanted ice cream I would treat myself to a waffle cone with chocolate and vanilla swirl from the Mr. Softee truck across the street. If I'm feeling like a recluse I may even get sprinkles. I wish I had a video camera for how silly these cake parties are. It's a shame that this is my last blog and I won't be able to tell you about the cake party dedicated to me.

I'm starting to ramble so I am going to break out on this note. I guess this means good bye. Good bye.

I haven't posted anything in a while. My bad. I must say that I have been noticeably busier. Like I said before that is a good thing. The intern staff has dwindled down to 2 1/2 soldiers so there is more work to be done. Time passes more quickly that way.

One week from tomorrow will be my last day for the summer. That gives me exactly 25 days between internship duties and school to relax down the shore.

Like a mentioned before I have been given the responsibility of placing a drag racing event that we represent into local calendar listings surrounding the race. It has been coming together nicely. In addition to pitching the races I also need to track down the papers they appeared in. That is proving to be more difficult that getting the papers to cover the event.

After I receive the clips I am also responsible for scanning them and editing them using photoshop. This is something that I had no idea how to do until last week so I can honestly say I learned something new. Which is the idea isn't it?

Alot of the other work consists of constructing media lists and tallying nielsen ratings to figure out equicalent ad value.

On another note. The City is the most disgusting place to be when there is a heat wave. I worked outdoors during a summer that saw the most 90 degree days last summer and didn't mind it as much as being in gross smelling Manhattan in sweaty dress clothes.

End date is August 10th. That will probably be the end of this blog too. This is my second internship and I don't plan on doing another for my senior year. As of matter of fact I dont plan on remembering my senior year. Maybe I'll get involved on campus. I'll make sure to post a farewell blog. As for the the small amount of people that have actually read this blog during its short life make sure to keep your eyes open for RockTheVoice.com. I'll explain more later.

It has been about eight days since my last entry. My bad. However, I see this as a good thing. I have been somewhat busier. The war room lost a soldier last week. His ten week stint had commenced. I picked up his accounts and it has been keeping me busy(er).

I was given the responsibility to secure calendar listings for our drag racing client. Nobody reads calendar items so I went for the big kill. I set my sights on features, articles and columns. I attached four photos to the media alert and contacted the sports and lifestyle writers or whoever sounded interested.

The first race, which is this weekend, will have two writers and a photographer present from local dailies. Overall there will be five solid write-ups in the form of a column or article in five different papers.

For next weeks race, which takes place in close proximity to my hometown, I pitched a solid angle to the features writer. She loved it. If I'm lucky she will act on it. Then again, "Ya gotta be good to be lucky and lucky to be good".

I had my resume revised by one of the top dogs here. He re-worded it nicely. Sounds much better than my retarded writing. He also introduced me to the HR guy. I set up an appointment with him and we are going to put the finishing touches on it.


Lately alot of people have been asking me if working in PR is what I want to do. If this company asked me to work for them, would I? I honestly like the work. What I am uncertain about is if I am ready to jump into all of this yet. The track I am on right now will lead me to a nine to five before I am twenty three years old. Am I ready for that? I'm not sure.

I started thinking about other options. Before this summer grad school was never one of those options. Going deeper in the hole with student loans is a scary thought, but with the amount that I will owe after my undergrad a couple more thousand can't be that bad.

Then there is the fact that I will actually have my masters. That's two years well spent. I will be able to be a kid for a few more years, have a little more fun and start my life two years later.

So I made the decision to at least weigh my options. I plan on applying to several different grad schools around the country and at the same time see what job offers come back to me. The goal is to be at a fork in the road instead of a one way street.

Jack

The title of this post is Jack because that is exactly what I did this week. Jack.

Made some calls to local papers in the surrounding area of a drag race event held by one of our clients. Calendar placements are easy pitches.

Monitored the blogs that I sent samples of our sports drink to. The bloggers have been doing a nice job with their responses to the product. I just hope that enough people read their blog for this to have an impact.

The best reading I did all week was on The Buzz Machine. It is a great example of how powerful blogs can be, if used correctly. Also, Jeff Jarvis has a strong voice in the Blogosphere (I hate that word). He makes some good points on how a large company can help or hurt themselves by starting a blog. He stresses that a blog should be a conversation between the company and its public not just a way for them to address the public.

Late for Work

I was half hour late for work today. However it is my birthday and I blame it all on Mr. Kirby. He should of never made me drink that Irish car bomb last night. He knew I couldn't have just one.

I didn't get that office cake party but the other interns bought me a sundae cup with a candle in it. I'm actually chewing on the flat wooden spoon that comes with it as we speak.

Remember I was telling you about the Brazilian soccer fan that works in our office? Well, he was features in the NY Times. Check it out.

Where's My Cake?

Short week. Because of the holiday I am only in the office on Wednesday and Thursday. This week also marks the halfway point of my summer internship. Not that I'm counting down until I can wake up at 11:00 everyday and nurse my horrible hangover by going to the beach and biting the bear that bit me. This blog will become 100x more interesting come August 10th. I guess I'll have to change the name from "The Intern" to "Recovering from the Night Before". Today feels like I'm recovering from the passed 4 nights. Fourth of July is my new favorite holiday.

Remember the whole cake ordeal? Well, Thursday is my birthday. Let's see if I get a cake. Its only fair, right? I contributed to some one else's birthday so it only makes sense that I receive the same treatment. Just plain old vanilla and chocolate ice cream cake will do. You know, The kind with the little crunchy chocolate separating the two flavors. I'm not picky.

I read a great article concerning internships on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. Too bad the wall street journal isn't available online otherwise I would provide a link.

The article explained how employers that hire interns are beginning to ask that they receive school credit for the internships as opposed to being paid hourly. Since students have to pay for the credits it really makes no sense whatsoever. The article went on to explain how some universities do not want to give full credit or sometimes any credit at all because they do not believe that it is an academic endeavor.

If you ask me they're both full of shit. The employers don't want to put their hand in their pocket and the schools don't want to give away any credits. One side has to give. Yet the students have no choice. No internships, no job.

I sent out sample products to the bloggers today as I continue to search for other credible blogs that pitch. Not too much else going on over here. Everyone is pretty quiet around here today. Something must be going around. Everyone has headaches and bags under their eyes. Wonder what it could be?

This week they added a new soldier(intern) to the War Room(the 8x15 ft space where these soldiers do battle). Regis likes to take a few afternoon breaks in the War Room. He says it "re-energizes" him. Whatever that means.

Regis, who is originally from Brazil, is in charge of generating media in Spanish speaking countries. He is especially busy right now due to the World Cup. Regis must get really nervous when Brazil has a match because whenever they are on TV he goes home sick. Weird right? He may be getting sick due to the fact that he eats a Whopper from Burger King every single day. He's head over heals for them for the sole fact that they are flame-broiled. Sometimes we like to push his buttons and tell him that they are made of rat meat or that Wendy's and McDonald's bugers are so much better. He flips out. He bought us all coupons for a free Whopper last week and it all started to make sense. The guy has a lifetime supply of these coupons.

Some positive results came from the event I pitched last week. AP Newark picked it up. Felt good. The blog research is finally starting to mobilize. Today and yesterday I initiated a dialogue with the bloggers to see how they would feel giving an honest review of our product on their blog in exchange for a free trial of the product. So far people have been very receptive.

Pitching the bloggers was the tricky part. A superior to me on the team blasted a press release to the entire list with out me knowing. This might have had a negative effect on the outcome. Bloggers are not journalists, a press release is not going to work. I back tracked through the list and sent personalized emails to each blogger and the results showed that it was more effective. Our next step is to ship the product to the bloggers.

I came across an article that made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. It was titled Entry Level Devils. The article ties together Interns, The Devil Wears Prada, The Hills and PoweR Girls. Using the characters from these movies/reality shows the writer supported her theory that my generation, Generation Y, has a false sense of entitlement. Is she nuts? I dont even want to use myself as an example to combat her theory because I'm one of many that are husting to open doors for themselves while the student loans pile up. The subjects she used to support her topic made her aguement very easy. In an e-mail I told her,

"I know for a fact I am not the only student with loans that scare the shit out of me, a part time job, an internship and a good attitude. If you ever want to write about how the “other half works” I will be able to give you plenty of subject topics."

So far no reply.

Good Talk. See you out there.