Halle Nelson is a student at West Chester University and an ISA Featured Blogger. She is currently interning abroad with ISA in Wellington, New Zealand.
I am fortunate enough to say that I’ve completed an internship in the United States of America and New Zealand! After having spent two months with my company, I can safely say that there are definite similarities and differences between the two nations’ work forces.
From my personal experience, New Zealand has a dramatically more relaxed atmosphere. This is not to say that work doesn’t get accomplished, but more that the day encourages workers to complete their tasks at their own pace without a regimented timeline (with the exception of projects that have a tight deadline to meet).
Working as the Communications Manager at one of Wellington’s Motion Design Companies Fox & Co. was an especially advantageous internship for me. I would organize the company’s social media calendar across several different social networking platforms, created templates for future reference, scoped out marketing opportunities domestically and internationally, wrote posts for the company’s blog, wrote and edited text for the company’s SOWs, sat in on storyboarding and concepting meetings for advertising projects, and much much more!
Did I mention that each person in the company gets to be a different animal? I was a bunny! How awesome is that?
This experience was truly invaluable to me. Getting to work in the advertising field and see the behind-the-scenes was fascinating and gave me a better understanding of subject areas I was familiar and unfamiliar with before I took up this position. Getting to do this in New Zealand, specifically a New Zealand startup, gave me the experience of learning about the advertising world whilst simultaneously getting to observe the kiwi culture and all that it entails. They’re very friendly and easy to work with. I mean hey, we even went out to lunch every week!
My typical day was laughing with my coworkers. It was maintaining interdepartmental and outside correspondences. It was completing each task with a better understanding of what I hope to continue doing in my future professional career.
It was spent with people I still consider to be my work family. I wish them nothing but successes and smiles in their future and hope that everyone else enrolling in this program has as amazing of a time as I did!
The world awaits…discover it.
One thought