Who are you?
I am Rebecca, fourth year student CIS. Since my first year I have been active at Flow and until now I have been in the Freshmen, Introduction, Promotion and Formal Activities committee. In February 2017 I started my master Business Communication and Digital Media.
Where did you do an internship and what did you do?
I did an internship in the communications and public relations department of the Orchestra of the Royal Air Force at Gilze-Rijen. This is part of a much larger ‘organization’: Defence. Most people thought it sounded exciting when I told them it was such a heavily guarded airbase. I was fully screened and received a card to get to military sites. As part of the Royal Air Force Orchestra, I was assigned to design everything for the new concert period. This included designing program booklets (design, images, text and formatting), beach flags, posters, writing brand stories and promoting the concert on Facebook. For this, I was in direct contact with the graphic designer and printer of Defence. I was responsible and trusted by the rest of the staff of the orchestra, which felt very good! I went to four concerts to see how the audience reacted to the designs and with all this feedback I could do some fine tuning. After this job, I rewrote texts published on (Defence) websites and I organized a small Christmas concert and Christmas reception (program booklets, catering, design and decoration).
How much did you work per week?
I was an intern for three months for three to four days a week. I started at 8:15 and went home at 16:30. I was stimulated to work on my thesis and I was supported to go to the university for thesis meetings on a workday.
How did you end up here?
My father works as a colonel at the Ministry of Defence in The Hague. He flew F-16’s and in this way, I was already in contact with Defence. When I asked him if he knew anything for me, he gave me a few telephone numbers and I started to call around without notice of a vacancy. Fortunately, the Air Force Orchestra was looking for a trainee and I could come over for an interview that week. The next week, I went to work! They were looking for someone with an affection for branding and exposure, a person with knowledge of digital media, writing (short) catchy texts and minimal knowledge of Photoshop. As this band mainly plays jazz and pop music they were looking for someone who could make the orchestra ‘younger’. They wanted someone who could work independently and who they could give responsibility.
Why did you do an internship? And did you get study delay and/or a compensation?
I wanted to do an internship because I only had to write my thesis during this semester. For this I only needed to be at the university one hour a week. I wanted to gain practical experience in my field of interest and it would be a boost for my CV when I finish my study. I learned to write brand stories, have faith in my own ideas, work independently, think out of the box (I designed round program booklets), not be afraid to approach people I don’t know professionally. I did not gain study delay because of my internship, but my internship filled up the time of my study delay. I received an internship compensation of €23 a day.
