Five Things I Learnt from my Internship at TwentyTwo Digital
What’s it like to be an intern at TwentyTwo Digital?
From my very first day at TwentyTwo Digital, and even without experience at other agencies, I knew this would be an experience unlike others. The team has a very close-knit and welcoming atmosphere, which made me feel immediately comfortable despite all my nerves.
TwentyTwo Digital places a great emphasis on learning, which as an intern is so important and comforting. Rather than being thrown into the deep end with a long list of tasks I didn’t understand, I had a buddy that met with me each morning to explain the tasks and answer any questions I had. As well as this, I had a tailored Learning Schedule about topics I was interested in learning more about. The combination of a helpful and collaborative environment with this learning schedule has allowed me to gain as much experience as possible from my weeks at TwentyTwo Digital.
What have I learnt from my experience?
- Learn everyday. The Learning Schedule encouraged a growth mindset, which motivated me to continually learn about new skills and to develop my existing skills. This allowed me to feel more confident in my work and my skills. I am inspired to maintain this growth mindset beyond my internship, which will be greatly beneficial for the rest of my career.
- Experience is invaluable. I’ve learnt a lot about important strategies and foundations of marketing throughout my university degree, but there are so many skills I learnt in my internship that I hadn’t been exposed to in my classes. For example, social media paid advertising and search engine optimization were new topics to me that proved to be critical throughout my internship. This is why it is so important to get work experience any way possible.
- Ask questions. The TwentyTwo team has been very helpful and have provided me with a lot of workshops to help me better understand certain topics. During my workshops I made sure to ask a lot of questions to ensure I had truly understood the topics, which made these lessons even more beneficial. To do this, I found it useful to remind myself that it’s okay to not understand everything and to always seek clarification.
- Agencies are fast-paced. This is something well-known throughout the industry, however, it is something that universities can’t adequately prepare you for. For this reason, time management is such an important skill in agencies. I found that TwentyTwo Digital helped me adjust to this easily, as they all used a planning program, which allowed me to plan and structure my days effectively.
- Believe in yourself. It can be really daunting entering the industry, but it is even more scary when you don’t believe you’re capable of doing well. As an intern, there were tasks I was assigned that I hadn’t had experience with, which was nerve wracking for me. However, with a growth mindset these tasks instead became an exciting learning opportunity, which has left me feeling more confident in my abilities.
Overall, I have gained great insight into real-life marketing agencies, from the daily responsibilities to working with real clients. This experience has been highly valuable as I now have a better understanding of my abilities, how marketing agencies operate, and what I can expect of my future career.
My favourite moments
As a sentimental person by nature, this whole experience has had a great impact on my life! However, here’s a short list of some of my favourite moments:
- Joining in on the weekly Fairy Floss Friday in the afternoon, where we all make fairy floss and play a game! These afternoons are always so fun because it has helped me get to know the team better and we would always have a lot of laughs.
- Weekly Work in Progress calls with clients were insightful and made me realise that meetings don’t always have to be a strictly professional matter and that it’s important to have meaningful relationships with your clients.
- An exciting part of the internship for me has been seeing my work go live! It fills me with joy and pride when I get to see the content I produce go up on their website or social media pages. This for me has been reassuring that the work I’ve produced is up to the TwentyTwo standard and makes me feel confident in my skills.
- Helping to prepare for the Office Warming during my first week was fun for so many reasons! It allowed me to immediately get to know the team better and also to meet more people in the industry and learn about their experiences and top industry tips.
Overall, my internship at TwentyTwo Digital has been valuable in terms of not only work experience but also for the connections I’ve made. I’m very grateful for the team’s assistance, welcoming nature, and support over the weeks and I’m definitely sad to finish my internship but excited for what’s next! I’d highly recommend taking the leap for all students to undertake internships because they are so great for building skills and confidence, and forming connections with industry professionals.
People often say that they learnt more on the job than they did at university, and now that I’ve taken part in an internship at TwentyTwo digital, I can wholeheartedly agree! Even though I’ve grown up as a very academic person with a great appreciation for education, I’ve learnt that no matter how well you apply yourself to your degree, you need work experience to fully understand your field of study.
