theointernship

[theointernship]

8. Your overall reflections on the internship and your studies.

The internship experiences I had were an absolute blast and really had a good blend of media work remotely, in person, as a team and working autonomously. Now there are a wealth of connections and work done by myself that all go towards my experience and help me improve every day, and the growth from before the internship is immense.

Not to forget the Melbourne Aces experience which was very hands on but most importantly the matchday experience taught me a lot about the background workings of a professional game. Seeing Josh and Woodsy managing the scoreboard and sounds whilst Tony announces perfectly like he has always done. Having a long conversation with Michael the American broadcaster who came over to Melbourne just for the summer was another great experience as I ease my way into the broadcasting world. 

For my studies, over the two and a half years so far, I have amassed some valuable hard and soft skills that has for sure transformed me from the clueless kid I was going in at 18.

The digital media and broadcasting classes with Davin have been the most useful, really improving on my previously poor Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Audition skills.

Recently the preparation to internship classes with Sharyn were extremely helpful in now writing a fantastic and engaging cover letter as well as improving my interviewing skills with the mock assignment we had to complete. My resume has always been quite dry and never utilised until I understood its importance and with the help of Sharyn and some classmates, it is looking very presentable. Still room for improvement for sure which will come post-grad as I start applying for full time positions that require a sense of professionalism.

The journalism and writing classes in the city with Peter Rolfe have been the most fun with an introduction to journalism and the basics of writing like hierarchy and importance of presenting facts with impartiality and neutrality.

Other aspects of the degree like Sponsorship, Marketing and Advertising were also extremely busy subjects that required a ton of group work to be completed to a high standard. The presentations and endless nights grinding away at the final assignment were long but was another valuable skill.

Overall just been a great experience making friends, meeting some awesome lecturers and getting some real world experience in the industry has made it all so worthwhile.  

#Youtube

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7. Reflection on your supervisor evaluations and how these align with your future career professional development requirements

In my 100 hour evaluation, Liam mentioned the fact that as a journalist it is very important to show initiative with stories I want to write about. This in particular was brought in about 2 months into the internship where Liam gave me the agency to find and source my own articles to post on the website that I thought were relevant, rather than relying on him to email me exactly what articles I should write about.

He also mentioned pitching my stories to the WhatsApp group and wider team as well as improving my promotion of work to get my name out there always. Liking and retweeting/posting on twitter and LinkedIn has been the latest change as well as reaching out to people in industry over email or LinkedIn to grow my network.

Another thing that is really important that was mentioned is being adaptable and versatile within the fast moving media industry. This was the case with a few articles I did at Soccerscene, normally posting about any events or with posts involving soccerscene’s partners where there was a time-pressing element to it. With Box Hill social media, there is a certain time frame from interviews to article written that has to be followed. This was important to learn in the internships.

Overall, I developed a lot in key areas of the social media and journalism space and Liam continuously mentioned the importance of using this internship time to improve on these skills to best prepare me for the tough industry ahead.

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6. Career aspirations including goal setting

I have a few future career aspirations involved in the sports media industry and importantly through this internship I have learnt not to box myself into just one competitive are of the industry that doesn't completely utilise all the skills I have gained through work or my studies.

Through SoccerScene, Box Hill United and through some classes during my studies at Holmesglen, there are multiple sections I feel comfortable in that get the best out of me.

Broadcast media

In the past year and a half, I have commentated matches for the Southern Football Netball League both as special comments and as play by play which has been a real fun experience.

Also put my hand up for the mentorship with Brett Phillips from SEN at the end of last year, which was awesome, got him to review some of my commentary clips and give us students advice on how radio all works on a particular matchday.

Brett said to the group that it is rather unlikely for anyone to get a full time broadcasting job before they reach their mid-30's citing Gerard Whateley and Anthony Hudson as two outliers. His advice was to continue building my local league craft and trying to get a foot in the door in another area of media.

Journalism

Journalism has always been a passion, which started with a Footy news website and supercoach podcast I used to run with three other mates in Year 9 and 10.

Through this internship with Soccerscene and Box Hill United I have managed to hone these key skills in journalism and also create a portfolio of articles that I am really proud of.

There are clear aspirations to be a sports writer for a publication and it remains my main goal from this degree, but I have learnt that it really doesn't come easy, and you must stand out in some way with your writing style.

My opinion pieces have been the ones I take most pride in because it showcases my thoughts in the most authentic way possible.

Social media

Box Hill United work has been a new experience for me in the social media side of things. It allowed me to put my improved photoshop, canva and premiere pro skills to the test as I made graphics and edited videos to be put out on all social media platforms. 

#Instagram

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5. Achievements and milestones

Written over 115 articles and counting for Soccerscene

Didn't think it would be that many going into it, but it has been a lot of fun and it was much needed experience if I am working hard towards a future in writing. Opinions, interviews, press releases and analysis articles expanded my range as well which was critical. Having a huge writing portfolio is great because it allows me to showcase my very best whilst also showing a certain type of work ethic to get this done.

Completing research and analysis on decision makers

Being able to interview key people in the industry and attending events to talk to former players was a huge step forward for me personally. It is something I had never done before and the goal from Liam and SoccerScene was to improve the quality of my articles over time as I started with very simple, short press release articles. Doing the research on each article has been a great skill I have picked up, making sure I cover a specific angle and back it up with statistics to strengthen my point. 

Working at my first sports club

Box Hill United was a new experience as a whole, with my Bentleigh Greens volunteer work ending abruptly due to covid, leaving me with little exposure to how a club runs it's social media channels. This experience is invaluable even if the team sits in the NPL3 Victoria league because there have been many Holmesglen graduates who have applied their skills to professional sport clubs, some in the AFL so there is certainly a market for these skills.

In my opinion, there weren’t too many things I would consider achievements or milestones, but it is nice to have this experience as a novice in the industry. It was certainly more of a learning curve than anything I had done before.

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4. Challenges you faced (the nature of the work, working hours, organisation, motivation, tabling of ideas).

Completing the hours

First challenge I have to mention is the completion of the hours which still hasn't been fully done yet and will go into March. In a way it has been a real blessing in disguise as it allowed me to branch out to other organisations or clubs that I didn't think I would be involved in.

Soccerscene hours had to be increased and even as early as last June, Daniel and I sort of knew that it still wasn't going to be enough for the full 228 hours. So I took on Box Hill United social media as a new offseason task for more hours which has been amazing. Working with an amazing team and creating fun content for a club that has lacked any presence has been a good challenge. The players have certainly gotten onboard with it.

With the Aces, I have built a connection with the group now and helped with an edited video and three articles on top of the short 30-hour stint I had which was hands-on. Created connections with Justin and Michael the broadcaster who I chat with regularly for some advice on my play calling in footy even if he knows nothing about it. Melissa recently emailed saying that if there were any articles she would want me to complete, I could do so if I had the time. 

Writing style

Especially in the first few weeks, the writing aspect was a big struggle. Formatting of the article was way off, and I needed to start using stronger or more compelling language. Over time I would gradually get better and whilst there is still room for improvement, I am extremely confident in the drafts I give to Liam every day.

Conducting interviews

Another challenge which may sound stupid, but it was actually conducting interviews, not something I am particularly used to. This goes for both Soccerscene and Box Hill where there was poor preparation on questions and just general nerves, but this was addressed purely through exposure to more of it.

Networking

Obviously very important in the industry. There were a couple of networking events in this internship so just taking advantage of that was a challenge. I am not the loudest person, so this isn’t a very fun experience at first but more exposure to it is always great and I wrote articles with interviews from people I met at these events.

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3. Becoming an effective team member and contributor

SoccerScene internship was quite an autonomous experience with a deadline and KPI's to be met that you work on yourself. Asking for occasional help was always an option but not really utilised by many. Use of the WhatsApp editorial group that was created by Liam was a really important step in helping me improve throughout my time in SoccerScene. 

At the start, it was a very dry chat that would get maybe one or two messages in there a week, making it pretty obsolete. There was a push from Liam and Stace to make it active every day and so every article idea, angle for an article or interview possibilities were floated in the chat. There was when I got feedback from everyone involved on the website on how I should structure an article and helped with contacting clubs/media members.

For any opinion or feature pieces, it was a requirement to float your original idea and have others suggest ideas to make it the best possible piece to be released.

Box Hill United was a lot more team oriented than SoccerScene and so if anyone were unavailable or had too much on their hands, there would be tasks delegated to people willing to step up and help. Being transparent has been extremely important for both organisations.

Melbourne Aces there were many different tasks I had to do on any given day, and I was happy to help wherever possible. From gardening to cleaning, stacking the fridges in bars and hours doing letterbox drops, there was an extreme importance on working as a team to ensure the team was set up for the Canberra Cavalry home series.

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2. Finding your feet in the internship: induction, and completing initial tasks

Finding my feet at Soccerscene and Box Hill United was made extremely easy by Liam and the process was great to ease my way in. At the start of the article writing for Soccerscene, Liam definitely gave me a huge helping hand by picking out a huge list of articles for me to do and giving regular feedback to me about article structure and hierarchy. There was a clear plan in place to eventually move towards sourcing my own articles which came in right around that 40 hour stage  when I was fully settled in. The KPI's discussed at Saturday meetings were quite basic and those were centred around length of articles, a 7pm daily deadline to submit a draft and ensuring I get at least one feature article (analysis, interview or opinion) out a week. Then as time went on, these were all raised.

Box Hill United, whilst being more team oriented, centred around me starting light with a simple interview piece for both the men's and women's teams using quotes by the coaches. Got help with questions to ask and on the writing of the article itself before eventually moving on to doing all this on my own accord. First big task alone was to interview Socceroos goalkeeping Hall of Famer Jeff Olver who was involved with coaching a new signing for the women's team at the club.

There is no doubt this deliberate tactic by Liam was a helpful one to ensure it wasn't all too much at one time.

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1. Your preparedness prior to commencing your internship and how you assimilated into the organisation’s culture

The lack of preparedness prior to the start of my internship ended up being a bit of a blessing in disguise, but it didn't start out that way. As seen in my resume before Sharyn's introduction class, there was genuinely zero experience or any real hard skills outside of doing a few YouTube videos and podcasts with friends about supercoach. The class definitely helped me but the internship itself was going to be the first real experience. There was a general nervousness and fear of the unknown about it, but I was still very excited to get going.

Meetings at the AKM building in Richmond were fantastic for helping with fitting in the culture. It's a shared space with many different startups there and plenty of separate rooms. There were issues meeting up often because of the distance between everyone in the group so the Richmond meetups on Saturdays were usually long and valuable time. They were often three hours long which involved one on one meetings and group discussions on topics like article ideas, interview possibilities and group KPI's to be achieved for the next week or month.

As the months continued on, I started to create a close bond with all of the guys in there and we had a dinner right before we went off to Christmas break. After the break, Liam and Stace made it known that there should be more times the group goes out to have a bit of fun. Recently, I went with five of them to two NPL games, one in Preston and one in Dandenong which kicked off their respective seasons. Was a lot of fun and towards the end of the internship I can easily say I fit right into the culture.