Madison Karakis

1. Now that you have nearly completed your fall internship, what advice would you give
to an incoming student about the organization you interned with?

After completing my internship, I would have some advice for an incoming student. First,

I would tell them to never be afraid to be social with their coworkers. The better you know the

people around you, the more comfortable you will feel throughout the experience. Everyone in

the office is very friendly, and would be more than happy to get to know you. The more

comfortable you are the better you will perform at your job.

To go along with my first bit of advice, you should never be afraid to ask questions.

When starting out in a new position there will be a lot of things you do not know. There is

nothing wrong with that. There are also things that you will never know unless you ask.

Everyone here is available to answer your questions and they will never make you feel bad

about asking. In fact, they will be more than happy to help out however they can. It all goes

back to being comfortable. You will not magically fit in and you will have to work at it, but you

will feel better in the long run.

2. Explain, including examples, how you applied your coursework in communication to

the work you did at your organization.

During my time at my internship with Yoder Graphic Systems, Inc. I had many

opportunities to apply my communication studies coursework to real-life scenarios. One of the

courses I have drawn from the most would be my Professional Writing course. I learned

valuable information on how to write a professional E-mail during my time in the course. When

I am at my internship, the most common way I communicate is through E-mail. The course

helped me understand how to pick the most appropriate subject line, address coworkers in a
professional manner, and how to format the message in the most logical way. I found myself

referring back to what I learned in the course many times throughout my internship.

The next course I feel I have applied the most is Communication Technology and Human

Interaction. As the social media strategist, it is not only my duty to create content, but also to

understand how and why people are interacting with what I create. The most difficult part about

the internship was getting my message out there for our customers to see. The content I was

learning in class helped me realize I may be struggling because of digital inequality. Many of

our customers are from older generations that do not understand, or put as much importance on

social media. That discovery led me to investigate other ways to get our message out there,

including finding ways to recruit younger clients into our social media community.

3. List three new skills you learned and used during your internship. Provide examples.

During my internship there were three new skills I learned: how to communicate within

an office, how to create company branding on videos, and how to create branded content. The

first skill I learned was how to communicate within an office. While communication styles and

tactics vary between businesses, I had never worked in an office environment. In the past, I had

never had to run content by a superior, update a superior on what tasks were done during the

day, or communicate with coworkers through E-mail. During my internship I was asked to run

content by my supervisor before running it. This led me to create a weekly content calendar so I

could lay out my vision for the week to be approved. Working at the movie theater, it was

unnecessary to update my supervisors when I completed a task or sold a ticket. At my internship

it was important to update my supervisor on what I did throughout the day.

While participating in my internship, I learned how to create company branding on

videos. This was something the company and I had never done before. I had to find the best
application for editing videos and learn how to use it to apply our logo at the beginning and the

end of our time lapse videos. This was similar to the other content I created. Everything thing I

created for social media needed to have our company brand. This led me to the photo editing

app called PicMonkey. I became an expert with this app and how to uniquely brand each image

I created to best serve the business.

4. What did you learn about yourself as an intern that you could not learn in the class
room?

During my time as an intern I learned a few things about myself. The first is that I work

well both when given a list of tasks to perform, as well as when I am given the freedom to create

my own tasks. I also learned that when given a list of tasks I am extremely efficient, but I lose

my creativity. I perform the tasks exactly as it appears on paper. When left to my own devices, I

spend more time on each task. I ensure everything I do is creative and unique in its own way. I

found it interesting that I can fall so drastically on each side of the spectrum. I also learned

during my internship that I do not like leaving tasks unfinished. It is logical that sometimes not

everything can be done in one day, but if I could not finish the task before I left for the day I

would be quite restless for the week.

5. How did this internship prepare you for "the real world?"

In many ways this internship helped prepare me for “the real world.” As I mentioned, I

had never worked in an office setting before. In my past, a majority of my customer relationships

were created in face to face settings. In my internship, many of my customer relationships were

created through social media channels. This internship also helped give me a bit of insight

regarding what career I am looking for in the future. I love creating content and running social
media accounts, but I also enjoy being directly involved in client relationships face to face.

During my time I was able to create content and run social media accounts, but I did very little

directly involving the clients. I am a very personable person and I feel like that skill was not

utilized. This has helped prepare me by showing I would not be content in this setting forever,

and that I need to look for a position that is more involved.