Final Reflection

I learned many things from my applied study experience. These past 8 weeks have been extremely time consuming. I feel like this experience made me feel like I was thrown into the real world. I learned much about myself and really put my work ethic and communication skills to test. I learned what it really means to start up from the bottom and the true meaning of responsibility and patience. This experience has made me grow because it has honestly helped me in my process of finding out what I really want to do with my life. The main skill this internship has taught me is my improvement of confidence in the working environment. I always believed I had great communication skills but things are very different when you are in NYC, in an office building, and sitting at a desk all day for instance. I was finally able to put to test all the concepts and skills I was taught at Arizona State. I definitely feel that it was a positive experience because I learned that life is tough and finding something that makes me happy is far more rewarding to me. The only thing I would of changed that I did not think about when I chose this applied study that I hope others realize in the future is that commuting to a non paid internship is no fun! Driving and taking the trains from New Jersey to New York and back is expensive and tiring. This experience has opened my eyes even wider and I now understand that no one is going to hand you your dream. You have to go get it…

Improve

There are a few things I would suggest that would improve Metropolitan Talent. The first thing that stands out is the way co workers communicate with each other in the office. Google Talk or AIM is used to talk to each other. I think face to face communication is much better in every aspect. There are many things being sent back and forth to each other through e mail such as press releases and ads for the concerts to be revised but people can walk a few feet to talk to each other instead of sitting at their desk all day. We are a promoting company that does not even communicate well with each other. I think they could utilize the social networking sites better. A blog is not going to attract enough traffic to their website.
I would incorporate more guerrilla marketing. I would have our name on more bus benches, subway posters, improve the flyering, radio, and TV ads.

Interview

Interview with Chelsea: July 7, 2010

What types of challenges do you face?
When it comes to challenges, I’d say our only issue is that occasionally communication can get garbled. For example, with revisions to a print ad. One person might suggest one set of changes where another will want the opposite, so streamlining communication over the matter (rather than a constant back-and-forth) sometimes becomes my responsibility.

Do you enjoy working on group projects?
We don’t often have group projects in the traditional sense here because we’re such a small company.

What is your ideal work environment? As you’ve probably gathered from interning here the past few months, things at Metropolitan are very relaxed, which I would say is my “ideal work environment.” I think it’s the kind of environment promotes a higher level of respect among employees and their superiors – after all, no one wants to be yelled at every day at work!

How has your education and experience prepared you for your current job?
In terms of education and experience, I went to the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU, which is a small college within the larger university where you design your own concentration. My concentration was in music & entrepreneurship and my thesis focused on gender politics in the music industry. Because of the flexibility of my program I was able to pick the majority of my classes to cater to my concentration as opposed to having to fulfill a bunch of requirements. Gallatin also encourages spending a large majority of time outside of the traditional classroom setting, by taking on independent studies, participating in internships, and even creating your own classes with a small group of students with similar interests (we called them tutorials). I think the flexibility of my program – not to mention living in New York – prepared me well for the “working world;” unlike most students, I was exposed to it pretty early on (for example, internships in music, film production, marketing, & PR from my freshman year forward; I was also the president of the only student-run record label at NYU which taught me a lot about the DIY/indie world).

Have you reached out to mentors and has the mentorship system worked for you?
I don’t really have any specific mentors nor do I model my work behavior after anyone – instead I try to learn as much as I can from everyone that I work with and create my own path.

Shadow

I shadowed my main supervisor the past few days. Her name is Chelsea and she arrives everyday five minutes before everyone else strolls in. I know this because I go in 15 minutes early every time I show up to my applied study. Since I started, I have noticed that she does a number of different things. However, when I made a purpose to focus on her activities, her primary task revolves around creating and revising marketing ad plans. I constantly notice the graphic designer walk back and forth from his office to Chelsea’s desk. Focusing on their conversations, it seems like she is overseeing the creation of all the print advertisements for Metropolitan Talent Presents. She uses the interns including myself as extra sets of eyes to proof the ads as well. She also coordinates ordering and delivery of radio and television promo spots for upcoming shows. She takes hours monitoring production and delivery of product to fulfill our purchase orders from our distributor. Yesterday, she created an excel sheet that took about 6 hours straight that laid out our updated inventory list which monitors incoming invoices for advertisements Metropolitan has placed in print. She takes her lunch everyday from 2-3 PM and always leaves at 6:30 PM. It is hard to shadow someone for a long period of time at my internship but I did learn many things from Chelsea. She does not have someone constantly giving her work to do. She was hired because it seems like she was an asset to the company and could add her personal creativity and dedication.