The end of university is a very exciting time, all that sweat, blood and tears will have finally paid off. You are finally free from the dreaded essays, soul destroying dissertations and will never have to use Harvard Referencing again. Deciding what you want to do next can be very daunting and it doesn’t help that relatives will constantly ask you ‘what are you doing with your life now?’ You may even decide that your degree is not want you want to do anymore, that’s where internships come in handy! They are a great way to test the waters and get your foot in the door.
After having finished university, I was torn between wanting to go into beauty journalism or PR. I had studied Journalism at university but through blogging and helping to organise an event I started to veer towards what journalists call the ‘dark side’, meaning PR. I thought the best way to see what PR was like was to do an internship. After looking on Twitter I saw that CCD PR were looking for a beauty intern and thought it was a match made in heaven.
My internship at CCD has been like a crash course in all things PR related and the knowledge I have learnt has been invaluable. First of all PR isn’t all the glitz and glamour that it is made out to be in films, there is a lot of hard work going on, which involves an endless amount of emails and being a social butterfly. Secondly, it is nothing like the Devil Wears Prada or any of those films, there is no bitchiness or breakdowns; the people who work here are so friendly and welcoming. Thirdly, you do not spend your entire day completing errands or running around like a headless chicken. Yes I have done the odd coffee or lunch run for business meetings, put stock away and taken the post, but those tasks are very few and far apart.
Working at CCD PR has allowed me to do so many exciting things like attend the event for the launch of their new brand benecos, where I met and spoke with some lovely bloggers and beauty press. It is also very rewarding when you secure coverage from a publication based on an alert you have created, you get such a strong sense of pride and it is really exciting.
Being on the CCD Beauty Team is never boring and no day is ever the same. They have such a variety of different clients that you are constantly doing something different and it is always exciting. University was stressful as you are trying to cram a lot of information in so sometimes you feel like your head might explode, whereas internships are a fun experience and they are what you make it. It has been a fun couple of months at CCD PR and getting to see the inner workings of the agency has been a great learning curve.
By Abigail Brown