Hi I’m Alice, a PR student at UWE and I’ve spent my Summer as an intern at Manor Community. I used to think ‘Intern’ was a fancy word for the office tea-maker but my time here has been everything but.

From day one, I had projects lined up which gave me the flexibility to practice old skills as well as learn new ones. I had first day nerves but was greeted with so many ‘hellos’ that I knew I was going to be looked after. I jumped straight into working on social media, posting content and learning how to increase followers. I loved how I had to think on my feet and communicate with others about what was happening.

I moved on to updating policies but found the repetition didn’t excite me as much as creating content on social media. While the policies helped me to learn the serious side of working in a business, it also helped me to learn that my passion was in creating. So, when I was asked to help create a recruitment campaign on social media, I was fully absorbed in it. I followed tutorials to start developing new skills and created a GIF and video that was shared across the social media platforms and website. I was proud that I had produced something good enough to represent the organisation and that was seen by over 15,000 people!

My last project was to create a social media policy from scratch using everything I had learned. Trying to condense all the tips and tricks into one small document was hard but I really enjoyed it. I also couldn’t resist using my creative juices one last time to create a social media infographic. 

I have loved working with Manor Community over the Summer. I wasn’t just shadowing or doing jobs nobody wanted to do, I was producing work, helping others with theirs and being a genuine asset to a company. On my first day, Sophie asked what I wanted to gain from the internship and I just said experience but I’m grateful to say I’ve walked away with so much more.