Starting My Marketing Internship
By: Abirami Murugadoss, Wharton ’23
Abirami editing HTML code for MailChimp campaigns.
University of Sydney – Australia
For the past week and a half, I have been working as a marketing intern for the Centre of Continuing Education (CCE) at the University of Sydney. Most of the tasks have been more focused on digital marketing efforts for my organization. So far, I have set up and published multiple Facebook ads for specific University of Sydney courses and developed Mailchimp campaigns for the CCE’s listserv. Through this process, I have been able to stay accountable for my tasks and work schedule using a platform I have never used before called Trello. Considering the added challenge of working across timezones, Trello has centralized my tasks and eased communication between my supervisor and I. I have also found Trello to be useful since my supervisor can comment on my assigned tasks and add any corrections he would like me to implement to my campaigns. This platform has made me realize there are more effective, alternative methods to communicating assignments beyond emails.
The tasks I received from creating Facebook ads and MailChimp campaigns were new to me. I received short 20- to 30-minute training sessions to learn the task my supervisor wanted me to complete on these platforms. With MailChimp specifically, I had to learn how to edit HTML code to redesign templates of campaigns. At first, I found this task to be a little intimidating since I don’t have much coding experience. However, my attention to detail during the training sessions allowed me to quickly become familiar with the platform. I found taking small notes during my meetings with my supervisor helped me when going back to a task and learning how to complete it.
When completing my Facebook primary text captions, I found that I spelled a few words differently than my supervisor since Australians use British English spelling for words like enrol or optimising. My supervisor sent me a guide for words like these.
I knew the initial start of this internship would most likely be the most difficult part of this experience due to the unknown element of joining a new organization. In the future, I anticipate being more organized with my tasks and work schedule by using platforms like Trello. I now know to keep notes of tasks assigned to me in real-time since it makes it much easier for referencing later. I feel that in the future I will be less anxious about being given an assignment I am not familiar with which is definitely a benefit in a professional setting.
The Global Research and Internship Program (GRIP) provides outstanding undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to intern or conduct research abroad for 8 to 12 weeks over the summer. Participants gain career-enhancing experience and global exposure that is essential in a global workforce. Placements and funding awards are available.