Final Thoughts on my Internship at Discovery Communications

Today is my last day here at Discovery Education.  It’s been a really great semester and I’ve learned so much about the company, the department and communications as a whole.  I thought it was great that Discovery’s internship program encourages interns to meet with many different people to learn more about the company and to network.  I met tons of people and got some great opportunities.  I loved getting a chance to work with the internal events group because I love event planning and I can see myself working as a specialist in event planning at a public relations firm. Reflecting back on my semester, I’m glad I took advantage of all the chances I was given to do different things here.  From dressing up as Mrs. Potatohead in a huge suit, to spending my Sunday afternoon on the National Mall at the National Science and Engineering festival, I’ve been able to do such a variety of things.

            My public relations skills have developed significantly this semester.  I’ve become very comfortable with writing press releases, researching and reaching out to the media, video editing and many other things.  Besides PR specific duties, I’ve developed a more professional self as well.  I communicate with other employees on the floor and send tons of emails each day.

            This internship has impacted my career goals as well. Before this internship I thought I only wanted to work at a public relations firm but now I feel that I could excel in a corporate setting as well.  A lot of great things go along with working for such a big company and I’ve really enjoyed my time here. Everyone has been very friendly and I could definitely see myself in this office.

Video Editing

Throughout the last few weeks I've been compiling news clip videos of Discovery Education.  This morning I finally completed the task of putting them all together as an internal resource for our department.  A bunch of the clips have shots of our employees at various schools around the country presenting awards or giving professional development lessons to teachers.  I complied these videos based on their relevance to our department.  I worked with Windows Movie Maker and then moved over to Final Cut Pro to make the video perfect.  This morning we showed it to my supervisor's boss, saved a copy on the shared drive and now it is complete!

Pictures from the event

The run-through

Buddy brought two cakes from Carlos Bakery where he works!

The first and second place winner of the cupcake decorating contest got to bring home a cake made by Buddy

A shot from the show (working the back door)

Cake Boss in the House!

Today Buddy Valastro from TLC's Cake Boss is coming to headquarters!  He will be talking about the new season, answers questions, asking trivia questions to the audience (Discovery employees!) and holding a cupcake decorating contest for his three 'biggest fans' in the room (those who get the trivia questions correct).  I volunteering to help the corporate communications team with the event.  I went down to help with the set up and run through this morning and today at 2:30 I'll go down for the final run through before everyone starts showing up.  I will be making sure there is no trouble wheeling in the table for the cupcakes.  Also, once the show ends, I will be helping at a table in the back where there will be cookies that Buddy made for employees to take. This is just one example of the awesome events they hold here at Discovery for the employees.  Tomorrow the actors from What Not to Wear will be here giving outfit critiques.

A Quick Update

I finished up the US Anti-Doping Agency press releases and those are all set until we have the winners of the True Sorts Awards to include in the releases.  I've done some research looking for coverage and following up with various publications to see when they would be covering recent events.  Other research I've done includes creating a media list for an upcoming event in Huntsville, AL.  I worked the other day on the Discovery Education press summary of the week.

I think I am going to take Psychology of Education next semester.  It is an EDU class, which I've never taken before, but As a psychology minor, it definitely relates, and since I've spent the semester here at Discovery Education learning all about the field, I think this would be a great class to combine two things I am interested in.

Discovery Education at the USA Science and Engineering Festival on the National mall

Today I helped at Discovery Education's booth at the giant science festival at the Mall.  Kids would walk through and we would do different activities with them.  The one activity that I worked with the most is an easy experiment that kids can do.  You take two soda bottles and tape them together with water in them and you flip it over and shake it.  The outcome of the air moving up from one bottle to the other from the shaking is a tornado in the top bottle.  Kids would watch me do it then try it themselves.  It was a lot of fun and I got the opportunity to work with other Discovery Education employees.

Keeping Busy as Usual...

The last few days have been great I've had a ton of different things to do.  Yesterday I started working on updating the USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) press releases from last year for this year's competition. This competition, the True Sport Awards, is an opportunity for teachers to compete with their innovative ideas for new programs for their schools to implement that involve preserve the integrity of competition and healthy living.  I also looked through many articles about Obama appearing on Discovery's Mythbusters to see if there were mentioned of Discovery Education and then complied those articles together. 
It is important for us to follow local coverage of Discovery Education events we hold with schools.  I also did research to look for local coverage of an event we held in  Katy, Texas and compiled those as well.

I met Andrew Grinc this morning, who works in the internal communications department of Discovery.  He mainly works on employee relations, so he tells everyone in the company any important news and events that go on in the different departments.  He is the person that I was working with when I dressed up as Mrs. Potatohead for the launch of hub.  He discussed some of the things he is currently working on, such as the up-coming launch of another network- OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.  He discussed his challenges with this network launch (the idea that this is a very female-focused network but you don;t want to totally ignore the other half of the employees that work here) as well as other challenges, such as deciding which events and news from which departments are top priorities. This was very informational and helpful, as well as interesting because every morning I check the portal, which is the Discovery Communications connection website, and now I can put a face to all the hard work that goes into creating and maintaining this page.

Today I finalized my drafts of the USADA press releases.  I'm now working on a big project where I edit and compile videos of news media coverage to make a 2010 Discovery Education Montage.

what am I doing at my internship?

There are two great things about Discovery:
1. I am always busy
2. I am always doing something different

I am never doing any administrative jobs.  Stephen always has me doing something that actually makes a difference in this department.  On any given day I can be doing anything from simply typing up an article to writing an actual press release that will be distributed to the media.  Meetings are central to working at Discovery and most days I will either sit in on a call with Stephen or I will have my own private meeting with someone else at Discovery to learn a little more about them and how the company works (as I described in previous posts).  I read many articles about education and need to make sure I am up -to-date on things going on within the industry.  I find myself everyday learning and researching something new that involves Discovery itself.  Before working here I could have never imagined how many facets there are to this company, and each day I learn more. 
I think one of my favorite aspects of work is how I am always doing something different.  In other internships I was always doing one thing or another.  Here, I don't mind doing a media list because I know I am good at putting them together in an effective manner, but I also know that it is not the only thing I will be doing for days on end.  I like the whole idea of surprise each day when I come in and having no clue what I will be doing until I get here.
 Today I had a meeting with a woman from HR who I asked to speak with me a little about the possibility of a spring internship.  It was a very informative meeting and I was able to learn about the various communication opportunities at DCI.

A couple more pictures that were posted on the Discovery Portal

Launch of hub!

                                          Photo op with David Zaslav, President and CEO of DCI

The Launching of HUB!

On 10.10.10 Discovery will be launching a new network called Hub, which is a kid's network.  In order to create attention and hype within the company, the internal communications department put together a week of fun activities for employees to partake in, such as a board games day and other things. Another fun way to get employees excited was to have a giant Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead walk around in the atrium, as well as different floors throughout the building.  Of all the interns at Discovery Communications I was the lucky one chosen to dress up as Mrs. Potatohead!  All morning I walked around to greet people and take pictures with them and Mr. Potatohead (another intern who actually turned out to be from Milburn, the town next to mine back home in NJ!)
The highlight of my morning: Meeting and taking a picture with David Zaslav President and CEO of Discovery Communications Inc., (DCI).  Well, I sort of met him.  It's more like Mrs. Potatohead met him, but either way it was still awesome.

Second Week on the Job

Now that I've worked a few days here at Discovery, I have a better idea of what type of things I will be doing this semester.  Stephen Wakefield, my supervisor, makes sure I am always busy and I'm always doing an array of different things.  This makes the day fly by because I never have anytime to get bored.  Yesterday Stephen had me draft an introduction about myself and send it out to various people at Discovery to ask if they had time to set up a meeting and tell me more about themselves and what they do here.  Today I had two of those meetings- both of which were very informative.

My first meeting was with Jennifer Iras.  She is a VP of Distribution Marketing in Domestic Distribution.  I almost wish this was not my first of these meetings because  feel that now I will be holding all of the other meetings to a very high standard.  Jennifer spoke intelligently and was very interactive with our conversation.  She explained the breakdown of Discovery and how we make money through the different facets of the company.  She also stressed the importance of a strong back bone and of creating bonds in the work place and more importantly maintaining them. She is absolutely without a doubt the woman I will strive to be in the workplace.  She is strong but not in an intimidating or standoffish way, but rather a professional one. 

My second meeting was over the phone with Lance Rougeux, who is the a National Director for Discovery Education who works with planning and operations for the Discovery Education Network (DEN).  He told me about the community that DEN has built over the last five years for teachers who are spread out all across the country.  This interactive tools lets these educators connect and share their materials, ideas, etc.  DEN also does many webinars and blogs as well as face-to-face events such as summer week-long programs.Within DEN there is a smaller group of the more interactive educators, and these are the STARS.  Within STARS there is an even smaller group, The Leadership Council (also educators around the country).  This group helps set up and plan events for local DEN groups.  Lance started as a teacher and uses his expertise and experience as a former teacher to help run this program.

Besides my meetings, I worked on various other projects today.  I typed up a few articles that were from print publications.  I was assigned two bigger projects today- one that involves creating a pitch to the North American Precis Syndicate (NAPS) and one that involves researching Discovery Education's older press releases and creating a press release for new districts that have recently acquired our services.

Some Thoughts

I chose this internship because I knew I wanted to get some experience at a fun and interesting company.  Also, I knew I wanted to intern somewhere with a formal internship set up where it was more organized than internships I have had in the past.  Also, I felt that my internship had to be in the field of communications.  Discovery fulfills all of these requirements that I set.  Lastly, I have a friend that used to intern with Discovery and she loved it (and now works here!) 

I see this as a very useful internship for my career because I am working directly in the field that I am headed for- communications. Although I am used to working in a more entertainment based office, I think it is important for me to gain insight into a different aspect of public relations. By the end of my internship, if I can write, research and pitch about education (a topic I don't know too much about yet) then I'll be able to work with any topic at any job in the future.

Just like any other internship I have done in the past, I am excited to be in a new office.  It's always fun to meet new people- learn about them, hear what they do, what they've done in the past and advice they have for me.  Discovery seems to stress the idea of setting up short meetings with different people in the company that you would never normally talk to. This seems like an awesome opportunity for me because it will give me such a greater understanding of what this gigantic company actually does.

(The view from my floor)



First Post, First Day @ Discovery

Today was my orientation for my fall internship with Discovery Communications.  The drive is super easy and quick (and best of all I avoid the beltway!).  There were about 60 other interns starting the same day as me and I am the only intern for my specific department, which is Discovery Education.  There were interns for almost every major- anywhere from programming and creative to marketing and finance. So far it doesn't seem like there are many AU kids but a ton of UMD students.  Orientation was VERY informative.  We had a bunch of speakers come in and explain different aspects of the Discovery Community.  A man from the learning and development department came to teach us about Discovery's past and he showed us what the company has been up to since 1985 when it was first started up.  As he went decade by decade, it was amazing to see how quickly Discovery has grown. 

(My first view of Discovery Headquarters)

I also learned that there is a lot more to the company than just working a 9-5 job.  It is a community with day care for families and there are a ton of opportunities for social groups that you can join, reminding me a little bit of college life AU.  There are groups such as multicultural, gay/lesbian and women's alliance that you can join and there are monthly meetings and events that you can go to.  All events are open for anyone in the company to attend, including interns, which is great for networking.