Marketing Intern at Bristol Achieve

Tell us a bit about your internship. 

Hi, my name's Lottie. I just graduated this year in English and Creative Writing and I secured my internship through the Experience Arts Internship Scheme. I got a marketing internship with Bristol Achieve which is an organization based in Bristol that supports students from disadvantaged backgrounds through peer mentoring and they recently started corporate mentoring too.

During my internship my main task was to create a new website for Bristol Achieve, which I did alongside another intern, and we created a new website on WordPress. Another thing that I did was to call up potential partners and log their contact details in a database to be used for future years, and then I also created social media marketing campaigns for the Facebook and Twitter.

Why did you apply to the Experience Arts internship?  

So, I applied for this marketing internship with Bristol Achieve for three reasons. The first one was to explore marketing and communications a bit more. I’d done some work in communications in the past, but I wanted to explore it in more detail and see if it was really for me.

The second reason was because it was Bristol-based and although I did it remotely, I thought it would be a good idea to make connections with people who live and work in Bristol as that's somewhere that I'm considering moving to work in the future.

The third reason was because it was for a non-profit organisation, and I'm interested in the charity and non-profit sector, so I wanted to get insight into that.

What did you gain from doing the Experience Arts Internship?  

I gained quite a few transferable skills from my internship. The first one was website design and website building. I attended a webinar called website building 101 and alongside another intern built a whole new website on WordPress which was challenging but really rewarding in the end.

Another skill that I gained was having a professional telephone manner. I was put in charge of calling up potential partners for Bristol Achieve and logging their contact details in a database and I got through to quite a few people and really improved my confidence as a result.

I also gained another internship from this internship, so I applied to the Graduate Internship Scheme at University of Birmingham, and I got one of the internships in Student Experience and Wellbeing. I think that was partly due to the fact that I had so many transferable skills and so many experiences and I mentioned a lot of the things I did in my Experience Arts Internship in the interview.

What are your top tips for applying to the Experience Arts Internships? 

Some top tips I would give to students wanting to apply for the Experience Arts Internship Scheme and other internship schemes would be number one to not limit yourself. Apply to anything and everything that you think sounds interesting because you never know what people are really looking for.

I applied for two internships, and I got interviewed for one but I do wish that I had maybe applied for more that took my interest to kind of open my opportunities a bit more. Another tip that I would give, when you have the internship is not to be afraid to ask if you can do more or ask if you can do something that you really want to do to kind of develop your skills for the future.

They can only say no so just remember that they want to give you as many opportunities as they can, if they're a good employer, and they would most likely be open to allowing you to do anything that you asked to do.