Shirin Azmi

Comm386
Evaluation of internship


I would evaluate my internship as the best internship I have ever had. I love
the atmosphere, the clients, the responsibilities and all of the overall experience that
I gained there. I successfully reached my original goals and objectives. I gained my
event planning skills and I improved my client and media relations. I assisted with
the execution of multiple events and I assisted with drafting and creating press clips
and project pitches. I measured my success in terms of completing my objectives
and analyzing the success of my work. I even extended my internship by a week so I
could spend more time helping out with assisting and executing events. This is my
first internship where I gained experience with event planning and it allowed me to
see how difficult it can be and how long it could take. Most events would take
months to plan and organize before it is executed. I also learned how to manage a
budget for a campaign and how important the timeline and budget are for planning
a campaign or event. In my studies, I have never created a budget or timeline for an
event so this was great experience because I had to create a budget and timeline for
my comm483 campaign proposal. Not only did my studies contribute to my
internship, but my internship experience gave me the skills necessary to excel in my
classes.
I believe that I performed at my highest potential. I enjoyed the internship
experience to the point where I was willing to make more sacrifices just to extend
my time there and gain as much experiences as I can. My supervisor and the
principals of the office began assigning me larger and more important tasks, I was
assured that I was serving as serving as a valuable addition to the team. I have
learned more about PR and event planning and how fast-paced PR is. BrandLinkDC
has many clients that allowed for me to experience an array of PR tasks, which
taught me how to tackle different PR tactics for different clients. This experience
has greatly affected my career goals because it has shown me that I thrive in the PR
field and it could be a successful career path for me. As I graduate and apply for jobs
I am definitely applying to more PR/communications jobs than I would have
originally. I strengthened my communication skills and I was able to produce
efficient work at a faster pace. I improved my phone-speaking skills with clients and
I became less nervous and more confident when answering the phone. Also, by
sitting in during conference calls or business meetings I was able to gain insight on
how the employees would handle the meetings, interact with different clients and
deal with issues. I learned that you must always be confident and have all of your
facts before entering a meeting because you never want to seem unprepared or
unaware during a meeting with a client. Strong client relations is a key to successful
PR.
The work site was cool, chic and it reminded me of the offices in The Devil
Wears Prada. Most of the employees were young, in their 20s and 30s, and
everyone was extremely fashionable. Being located in Georgetown was also
extremely nice because it was a nice commute and it was fun to take clients out
around the area. It also made it extremely easy to travel to and from events because
the office was located around all of our clients. The interns had our room separate
from the office where we could collaborate on projects and work together to solving
issues or handling large tasks. The employees would come to our room to issue
different tasks or documenting our progress on the assigned tasks. Certain interns
were given more difficult tasks, like me, while the others would do tedious tasks. It
was blatant that interns were required to prove themselves in order to receive
larger and more important tasks. In the office, the employees spoke to the interns as
equals, which I enjoyed because it showed that they respected us as equals and we
were simply free-labor. My coworkers did not intimidate me and I was able to
establish strong relationships with each of them. Even though I became close friends
with several of them I always maintained a high level of professionalism.
In conclusion, I had an amazing learning opportunity at BrandLinkDC and I
wish they had employment opportunities so I could apply and hopefully be hired. I
am definitely going to maintain my relationships with them and I hope to work with
them again in the future.










Without a doubt, I would whole-heartedly recommend the internship
program at BrandLinkDC to any of my classmates. It is fun, exciting and a great
learning environment. It is a great internship opportunity for students who wish to
gain more experience in PR, marketing and event planning. The entire staff team is
friendly and is happy to teach and help the interns learn more about the PR field.
The internship is extremely time-consuming because it requires a huge time
commitment to assist with events so I would not recommend this internship to
someone who does not have 20+ to contribute a week to the position. BrandLinkDC
specializes in PR in the luxury marketplace and provides its internships with PR
experience in the hospitality, beauty and fashion industry. Clients include Drybar,
Bluemercury, Equinox Fitness, The Frye Boot Company, The W Hotel, and many
others. There is a fall, spring, and summer internship opportunities for students and
the program consists of 8-10 interns. The internship coordinator is Allix Wright and
interested students should email a resume and cover letter to
allix@brandlinkdc.com. The office can also be reached at 202 733 5223 and
www.brandlinkdc.com