This past semester brought about a lot of changes to my life. While most of my friends decided to study abroad for the second semester of their junior year, I chose to stay in Austin, focus on my studies and get an internship. As winter break came to a close and the semester was about to begin, I started to doubt my decision to not go abroad. Did I just miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Will I regret staying in Austin while my friends travel the world? Taking a deep breath, I dove into second semester with as much optimism as I could.

Interning at HMG Creative this semester opened my eyes to something I had not seen yet in my past internships. In the public relations field, it is common to work with a client without any background knowledge of their industry. As a PR professional, it is our job to immerse ourselves in as much information as possible to help us assist them in reaching their business goals. This is what HMG has taught me. Working as the marketing intern for an unfamiliar industry that I did not have much previous knowledge, the web-design industry, truly showed me how flexible my job field is. Sometimes you will have to adjust every communication tactic to appeal to a specific audience. And this is exactly what I did at HMG Creative.

My responsibilities as an intern revolved mostly around writing. Upon accepting the internship, I was so excited to be able to further strengthen my written skills because the internship prepared me for my career interest upon completion of my degree in 2017– speechwriting. Each week, I wrote one blog post that was either industry-related or relative to Austin, and sometimes I would have to write extremely timely posts that would have to go out by the end of the day. Writing in a fast-paced environment helped me to better concise my thoughts and to smoothly execute them in the posts I wrote. I am grateful to have had as much experience as I did with writing, and I can wholeheartedly say that my skills became much stronger after this internship.

Unfortunately, my time at HMG has to come to a close sooner than I expected because I recently got an offer for a summer internship position at the Clinton Foundation in Arkansas. My internship experience at HMG Creative has prepared me for the next steps in my career, and for that I cannot be more appreciative.

This past semester has certainly taken a different route than what I was used to. But the skills I have acquired over the past five months have made me feel more qualified than I ever did and I know I will be able to get the job of my dreams.

Thank you, HMG.