Starting your internship?
Many people are in their first few weeks of their internship right now, so I thought it appropriate to pass along a few tips to help you make the most out of your summer in PR.
As always, your thoughts are appreciated, so feel free to add to this list!
Anticipate: Think ahead. It depends on what area of PR you’re interning in, but you’ll probably be analyzing press coverage at some point. Look critically at the issues your clients are facing and anticipate questions they’d ask if they were looking over your shoulder. Also, think about what problems your client is trying to solve. Anticipate media coverage, too. Take a look at an emerging issue and try to predict how it will be perceived in the media. This will help you create better analyses, press releases, etc.
Take the good with the bad: There will be fantastic, interesting things that you will do over the course of a summer. However, sometimes interns have to do stupid things - there’s no escaping it. I had to sift through five newspapers every morning for an entire summer and literally cut out “clips” for my boss. I also got to go to a private party with a client on top of the Sears Tower that same summer, so roll with the bad tasks and enjoy the good ones to the fullest. Realize that even the most mundane tasks need to be done for a reason, and that everything you do, no matter how small, fits into the bigger picture. So, take pride in doing even the smallest things, 100 percent - it will pay off.