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.