Now about halfway through my internship, my timetable and work was becoming more regular. Like previously mentioned, Macmillan offer training courses to their staff, which interns can join too if we email a week before – so I’ve been making a note of when to email to try and get a place. Luckily I managed to get a place on Writing for Macmillan, which was really interesting as it investigated the approach for how the charity writes and portrays itself to others. Similarly, I had an induction with someone from the Cancer Information Development team which I found very useful to discover how the charity utilises the information it has to make it as effective as possible. In line with my aspiration to go into Science Communication, it was great to try and understand the importance of target audience and the average reading age when writing.
With respect to the project I’ve been working on, I had been using the final report of the research in Patient Needs in Digital to craft a presentation to be used by the technology directorate to display the findings and what we may want to do with the results. As Macmillan don’t currently have a strong strategy in digital, it’s exciting to potentially help develop Macmillan’s future plan. Being of my generation also helps to prioritise the most important features which will be used by the public.
A career’s management 1 to 1 was also set up by Macmillan to help the interns develop their career aspirations. This was great as we covered everything from LinkedIn and my CV to how best to approach the real world of jobs! The best thing to have happened in these 3 weeks, though, was the day that the video department allowed me to come with them on a filming day! We went to the University of Arts London to film and the experience was great. I hadn’t had any practical experience up until then and they were all friendly enough to let me bombard them with questions I had about the industry.
With only 3 weeks left, it’s surprising how quickly the internship has gone by but it’s been so much fun so far. The interns have been great company too along the way but for the next blog, look out for how out fundraising pub quiz goes!