This summer I’ve had the opportunity to participate in not one, but two internships, based locally in my hometown. I am incredibly lucky to be blessed with the network I have, without which I wouldn’t have either opportunity.

I love both of my internships because they are both directly related to the career that I want to pursue post-graduation, social media management. Not only that, but they are local, (which means no paying for an expensive apartment in an unfamiliar city) and I am getting real-life applicable experience in my chosen field.

Working every day is also a new experience and I have had a very busy summer, but it’s really awesome to see what having a real job is going to be like.

If you want to see what I’ve been up to you can check out @cityofstuartFL @cityofstuart on Twitter and Instagram respectively and @unitedwaymartin on both Twitter and Instagram!

It’s cool to see what working in local government is like, with my internship with the City.  I get to experience working on the monthly newsletter, see what goes into press releases and witness news interviews live, from behind the camera.

For my other internship, I get to see what public relations for a nonprofit is like. I’ve gotten to work hands on with exploring the analytics for all of our social media accounts, compare them to other nonprofit businesses and work on increasing engagement and following. I’ve had the opportunity to learn how to better write for the PR world which is different from news writing, which is new, but still very similar to the background I’m familiar with.

I’m incredibly grateful for these experiences and I am eager to keep learning as much as I can before the summer is over and I head into my final semester as a journalism student at UF.