Internship Evaluations

What do our interns learn?

How do they evaluate their internship experience?

Here are a few comments…

Julie Ellenberger, Middlebury College '09

What professional skills did you learn during this internship that you feel will help you further in college and in your career?

Editing, writing articles, pitching ideas, shopping around for publications, effectively corresponding with clients, networking…the list goes on and on!

What career insights did you gain that you feel will help you be successful in your eventual career?

I have become convinced of the great importance of publishing articles and books and giving presentations in order to increase exposure and credibility for businesses and their leaders. I really like editing, helping people to find what they are experts in (listening in on the Longfellow client meeting was particularly interesting), and helping others improve their businesses through building the credibility that comes with publishing. So I guess I do like both the consulting and PR components of emersongroup and would love to try something along those lines in the future!

What aspects of the internship did you enjoy?

I loved all of the people that I got to work with here at emersongroup. Ken is a great person to work for—he is thoughtful, helpful, realistic in his expectations, and trusting of our abilities. I always felt like I had something to work on that was important (whether it was a bigger project or a bunch of little tasks), but never felt really pressured to rush through it.

In addition, I really liked actually getting to meet, interact, and work with Ken’s actual clients, instead of just having to watch from the sidelines. It was awesome how much Ken included us college students in meetings, lunches, and projects with important clients and organizations, and I always felt as though my opinion was valued, which is kind of a rare thing at a summer internship. It really made for many wonderful learning opportunities in real business situations!

What did you NOT learn about that you wish you had?

Because of the short two-month span of the internship, I didn’t get to see as many projects that I worked on come “full-circle,” particularly the book proposals.
Also, since most of the client work we did as interns was with clients that Ken had already secured, it is interesting to me how he gets new clients and that process of “sealing the deal.” However, I did learn quite a bit about the value of keeping current clients happy and how that can help you to retain their business year after year.

How could this internship be improved?

Although we did do some research on newer technologies and blogging, I think that it would have been cool to be able to do some online writing. I think that we are definitely starting to realize the importance of blogging and online publications, but by next year, it will be crucial in order to keep ahead of all of these Web 2.0 trends. Otherwise, it’s hard to find another answer to this question.

How could the “freezer” (the room you worked in) be made over to improve its working environment?

A skylight would nice for some natural lighting…maybe a newer microwave! But it’s not a bad room; it was fun having others in the room, and I still had enough personal space.

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