The first two weeks of my internship have gone really well, I started a week late due to my advisor got sick so she wanted to wait till she was better for me to start. I was able to make some practice TikTok’s to get an understanding of how she wanted the videos to look like.

Being able to get an understanding of what will get the best results for getting views. Being in charge of posting for FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok for a page that has a decent following has been really interesting and seeing what is popular and what isn’t.

The first couple videos I created, didn’t do the best but then I found that the videos have been doing better on Instagram than on TikTok. Being able to choose which story to create a video has allowed me to create something that I am interested in. I can finally say that I am in the swing of knowing what to post on what day and what information to add on the post.

During the second week of my remote internship with Thirty Tigers, I learned a lot about how marketing in the music world works and how it is different than the other experiences I have had in marketing and advertising. The main thing I focused on this week was creating material for one of our artists, They are currently gearing up to release a new record he is a folk/Americana artist. Before this week I was unfamiliar with their work but I did learn quite a bit about them. On Tuesday I was invited to join the company-wide meeting to discuss Parker’s new album and how they are planning on marketing and distributing it. During this zoom meeting, I learned a lot. I never really thought about how much work and thought goes into advertising and marketing for a record. In the meeting, the artist’s manager broke down to everyone the theme and vibe of the new album. It was a big theme of environmentalism and nature and then the marketing team all gave suggestions on ways we can promote the record. What really stuck out to me about this meeting is how collaborative the process of album marketing and distribution is. The marketing team came up with so many different ideas to promote this recording including a lot of collaborations with businesses, streaming sites, environmental organizations, and more! It was so interesting to just listen and get an inside scoop on how the industry works. In addition to that I worked on editing serval videos for this artist. I cannot share these at the moment because these songs have not been released yet and I have been asked to keep this information confidential since this record has not been announced yet. In addition to that, I worked on making Instagram story posts for new music Friday, and I started google sheets where I track how certain artists are doing on social media. It was a very interesting week and I learned a whole lot!

For the third week of my internship with the Stetson Men’s Basketball team, I had to scale back my workflow for the first time since I started working with them. This week during my internship, I tried to work on getting outside of my comfort zone and forcing myself to work through different platforms. In my opinion, I believe that most graphic designers should be able to navigate and use Canva in a professional setting because it’s rising popularity is undeniable. As time goes on, Canva is becoming more and more powerful and tempting to use than ever before. Aside from it’s increasing capability, I find that most of the people I work for or have interviewed with find it very user friendly and prefer it because of it’s free use as well as it’s very easy to use UI.

While working this week, my biggest concern was getting more comfortable with using Canva as a medium, and I think that I was successful in that endeavor. As I began to create a variety of different types of graphics, I found that I began a lot more efficient in adjusting the scale of different elements, as well as becoming a lot faster at modifying the colors of different components, and understanding how each of the filters affected different color schemes or graphics. Moving forward, I will feel a lot more confident talking about my experience using tools like Canva, and will be able to relate to some of my older coworkers a lot easier.

If I were to choose three words to describe the past week, I would say: overwhelmed, excited, and advancing. In the past four days, I have been thrown random projects, assignments, graphics to design, ads to prepare, blogs to write, and even customers to reach out to.

To say I feel valued would be the least. I am, however, feeling very good about things. I feel incorporated and I feel “In it”.

This week, I definitely dove more into the Marketing department. I was tasked with creating graphics and advertisements that will be displayed on our partner’s landing pages (and even got great feedback from the CEO on this work). I was in charge of creating an entire blog post that recapped a monthly webinar. And I also helped work on email header graphics, a monthly job that I have now been assigned from now until the end of the internship.

One of the main things that have come out of this past week, is that I sometimes need just an extra boost to feel that “confidence” I am yearning for within the company. On Monday I was asked to call and talk to a client for the first time, and my immediate response was: “Oh, well maybe tomorrow… I’m not thinking I’m ready for that yet”. Of course, I was still pushed to make the call. And as you could guess, everything went fine. In fact, it went more than fine. Getting past that nerve allowed me to confidently talk to customers this entire week and explain things about the software I didn’t even know I knew. So my goal for the next few weeks is to stop underestimating myself. I was hired because someone was confident that I would be the best fit for this job. And I know have a role to prove and demonstrate that!

For my second week of my internship with the Stetson Men’s Basketball Team of this semester, I continued the same path I had started in my previous week. This week, I continued to work on graphic templates, and am trying to put myself in a position where I can have a basic outline of a social media graphic prepared for whatever the team accomplishes next. I was able to fully complete a few graphic templates aside from the word-choice within them. When the time comes next to promote an upcoming game or event related to the team, I will now be able to very quickly and efficiently change the text on the templates that I had made to be able to provide the team with a graphic at a moment’s notice. In this upcoming week of my internship, I plan to yet again create more templates to have in my collection as well as my portfolio, but I will also soon need to transition my focus from photoshop documents to other types of media as well, so I am now deciding whether I will choose to switch to more of a video format in the upcoming weeks, or if I will continue to create similar media, just supplemented by the use of apps like illustrator or Canva.

One of the graphics that I had created was posted to the Stetson Men’s Basketball Instagram story and was used to promote the game that they had played on Thursday. Another graphic I made was not yet posted but can very easily be edited to reflect whatever their current record is, so my vault of templates will hopefully continue to grow as fast as it has been in the past couple of weeks.

On Thursday, January 12th I started my spring internship as a Digital Marketing Intern for the fNashville-based music marketing managing, and disruption group Thirty Tigers. I am a big fan of the Americana/alternative country/folk genre. I had an interest in the company when I saw that they work with a lot of my favorite musicians including, Jason Isbell.

I was very honored when I got offered this position, ever since I got into the design and marketing world I had hopes of doing work for the music industry and this position is perfect for me since covers a genre and area of music that I have great knowledge in. On Tuesday the 10th My two site supervisors Garrett and Caroline reached out to me over email and they sent me all the important documents I would need for this role. These documents included one detailing my job description, one outlining upcoming releases that I have to update weekly, and some other important info regarding artists’ plans for 2023.

On that Thursday I had a zoom meeting with Garret and Caroline, we discussed my schedule and my responsibilities, and they explained to me that a lot of my work will deal with “living in my email” and collecting all the necessary assets that their artists needs, editing and making overlays for promo. videos for artists, creating weekly “New Music Friday” posts for their Instagram stories, and more. The zoom meeting with my supervisors went super well, they were nice and informative and they answered all my questions. After that, I joined the company-wide weekly marketing meeting where they discussed a lot of future plans and I learned a lot. I also created my first set of “New Music Friday” Posts. Overall, it was a very good first week and I am very excited for what is to come. For more information on the company, here is their website, https://www.thirtytigers.com/

Since my last post there have been a lot of major events! I earned my ears which was amazing! They had a bunch of us in a big room and went over safety and all of Disney’s important rules with us. Then they gave us a pair of mickey ears and our name tag. It was so incredible to see my name and Stetson University on a Walt Disney World name tag. It was truly a dream come true. Also mickey mouse came into the room for a bit which was super awesome.

After that, I had a few days off before I went straight to work so I spent some time doing school work, relaxing, hanging out with my roommate, and other things. We didn’t have our park entrances yet so I couldn’t go to the parks. My first day at the Grand Floridian was very good. We had an orientation where we went over the language Disney uses, the safety tips, and other important rules for us to follow.

I’ve noticed how important and serious Disney takes certain things that other companies don’t emphasize as much as Disney does. For example, Disney is very adamant about keeping all the areas clean. Everything is being cleaning constantly and every night at closing things I didn’t even think needed to be cleaned are cleaned very thoroughly. It honestly shocked me how many times we clean everyday things that I truly hadn’t even considered cleaning before. We even cleaned the cleaning supplies which was a surprise for me. I worked at Chick Fil A for two years and while a lot of things between these two companies are similar, I have to admit Disney does everything Chick Fil A does but like triples it.

Besides that, at orientation we did a walking tour of the whole property which was awesome. I’ve stayed at the Grand before so I knew were mostly everything was but it was nice to get an extra look into it. We also got to see inside a room of the Disney Vacation Club members. The Grand has the most expensive rooms on property other than the new Star Wars resort that was just recently built.

The next day I did some other training on the computers as we had a lot of information we needed to learn. Things such a food safety, the rules for alcohol servings, language, and many other important Disney guidelines. Also, we got to try free food which was super good! Then the day after was our first real day of hands on training. I worked super early in the morning. I woke up at 3:45AM to get to my 6AM shift. I will most likely never have to do that again considering they mostly have DCP kids working at night. The breakfast was good, mostly just waffles and other basic breakfast items. I learned how to make many different types of coffee and waffles. I was very exhausted by the end of that day but then I made a new friend. Her and I went to Disney Springs, I had never been before!! It is just like a shopping center but with all Disney stuff. We get a 40% off discount so I bought a lot of things. Then the next day I worked a 4 to closing shift. We also got free food this night which was amazing. I learned how to bag the food, do general stocking, and clean the dining room. The firework show at Magic Kingdom is at a park range of distance from our resort so guests always go outside the restaurant I work at to go watch it! Since it was our first night, we got to watch it as well with them!! It made me honestly so happy. Then I closed which was definitely a new experience because I’ve never closed anywhere before.

The next day we did some more training making chicken nuggets and frys in the fryer, which I have never done before, and other ways we clean our area. I made more friends and a few of them drove me home so I wouldn’t have to take the bus at 1AM. We stopped at Wawa too which was fun! I am really liking my job the more comfortable I get. I still have three more days of training, two at this location, and then one at the location that is like a little hut outside the pool called “Beaches” so I am excited to learn there as well!!

People don’t joke around when they talk about how organized but also intense the Disney training process is. I am enjoying it a lot but I am also very exhausted. Luckly, the next two days, after today, I get off so I will be going to Magic kingdom and Hollywood Studios with a friend on those two days. We finally got our free park admission so now I can go to the parks whenever I want which is amazing!!! I hope to make more friends so I have lots of people to go with!!

Today I have another closing shift and I think I am training on the register so that should be interesting. More to come but so far have had a wonderful experience with the company!!

On Tuesday of this week, I attended the monthly staff meeting with Bethany. This meeting was at the main campus where they display the work of several different artists and offer residencies. Everyone on the team was very welcoming to me and introduced themselves as they gave an update on their department. I was able to hear about roles such as donor relations, fundraising, event coordination, and more. It was not a particularly exciting meeting, but I feel like it allowed me to gain insight into the center and how it operates behind the scenes. I actually work at a nonprofit so I am already relatively familiar with how they operate, but of course this one is different and has different demands related to its mission.

Today, I helped Bethany with her monthly painting workshop called “Spotlight.” This is open to all ages, so there were adults and children. Each table was set up with supplies for today’s prompt. We ripped out images of a magazine and pasted them onto our canvas, which we then painted over to create a mixed media collage. I participated in the workshop myself and took note of how Bethany interacted with everyone there. She definitely kept a very positive attitude and made sure to encourage everyone as they went, ready to help when needed. I enjoyed getting to help set up/take the workshop and do it myself to get both sides of how an event like that works.

Last week I began my position as a Creative Marketing intern at Details Flowers Software. Eventually, I will focus on social media, graphic design, and social marketing. However, for the first month, I, as well as the other intern (he is a sales intern), will be training with the Details Support and Service department to learn everything there is to know about the software, how it runs, how it benefits our clients, and how the different departments work together for the best possible final result. During this internship, I will be working Monday through Thursday 9 to 5. I was initially a bit skeptical regarding such a heavy workload, however, and confident in the preparation it will provide me with for my future career goals. 

Immediately I felt comfortable and accepted by the team and have been working on tasks since the first hour. As interns, we are treated as a part of the team. We attend all team meetings, and events, and so far, have been valued for our current knowledge and skills. The past two weeks I have learned how to create and transfer spreadsheets, specifically for the AIFD Symposium that will be occurring in July. I also have been consistently shadowing the support team with calls, and tasks, and learning all of the ins and outs of Hubspot. Additionally, I have conducted several calls to clients regarding their subscription plans, and have sat in on multiple tutorial meetings for the software (these are called “Details University Courses). 

This Thursday (today), we had the opportunity to accompany the Details team to the official ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Details Sales Lab in partnership with the Stetson University Centurion Sales Team. This was my first major event and gave me insight into how respected Corrine Heck (my boss and Details’ CEO) is in the business industry and the floral world. And I am confident that I will be learning so much more from her over the course of these next few months. 

While I am incredibly eager to begin working in the marketing department and more specifically in the social media and graphics area, I feel as though working with the support team has been very beneficial in my understanding of how the marketing approach should go and why it is important to understand the company as a whole before jumping into such a specific team. I could not be more excited about this opportunity and am looking forward to really understanding the workflow of such a successful company.