2020 Social Media Internship
Kristen
Experience Information
Employer: Grand Valley State University Office of Student Life
Job Title: 2020 Information Desk Social Media Intern
Major: Advertising & Public Relations
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: No
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
The 2020 Information Desk is a resource on the Allendale Campus of Grand Valley State University. It has an email account, a website which is a part of gvsu.edu, and a Twitter account. The main task of employees of the 2020 Desk is to answer questions for Grand Valley students about both of the campuses as well as the Grand Rapids area.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I was in charge of the Twitter account as well as the email account. I sent out original material, retweeted things sent into us by students and other organizations, and replied to people who would tweet questions or concerns at us. The email account is mostly for students to email their questions, so I answered all emails associated with the 2020 address.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
The most important thing I learned was that people are very mean and not understanding over social media sometimes. I learned which people to ignore and which people to refer to outside resources to help them with their problems. I also learned how to direct material at a specific audience including what kind of material and what time during the day is most effective for sending out original material.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of this experience is the people I got to work with. Over the past semester, we have all become really close, and I will be very sad to leave them when I graduate in a couple weeks.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
I actually decided against pursuing a job in advertising. This internship really showed me that the advertising world isn't sunshine, butterflies, and creative design. I wanted to go into social media for a large corporation, but after running social media for a small information desk, I realized how mean people can be over the internet and how much it affected me. I decided that I was going to take a year off and go to graduate school for a masters in higher education. As of now, I would like to be some sort of student advisor one day. Without this internship, I would have gone blindly out into the world not knowing what my future was going to be like. Since having this, I know exactly what I do and don't want to do. That means everything.