Portfolio

Chrissi Venier

04/29/17

WC: 1107

• What challenges did you face?

I struggled with communication, ironically and trying to maintain a professional relationship while still being fun and open to new ideas. My supervisor and I got along really well and we have a great relationship but when she finds certain things she likes and wants to post on our social pages, our tastes somewhat differed and I worried about our reception from our audience. I think some of the material is great for the page and the vibe that we agreed was right for the business but some of it just doesn’t fit the reputation we are trying to have with our audience. Because I’m staying on next  year I hope we can agree on a mood and theme for both of our social media pages so it’s easier for our audience to adjust to.

• How has it affected your career search?

As a junior, I’m giving it some time before I find a job or start seriously looking. Over the summer I’ll be doing another internship with a non-profit called Freedom 4/24 as well as working for an electrical contracting company doing their PR and event planning. I think when I do start looking for a job I will have a lot of material to fill my portfolio/resume with. I have created a lot of material and have already done an interview with the work I have done.

• Have you gained the skills you hoped you would detailed in the 1st journal entry? Why or why not?

I did gain the experience I wanted in event planning. I planned our First Annual Open Barn held on April 1st of this year. Because everything with BrightEyes is new since they just started out, we had nothing to go from. We did everything from meeting with caterers, gathering donations, publicity, and more. I feel like out of everything I did in this internship that was the most time consuming and the most hectic. I’m glad I got the experience of planing that event and I’m really proud of the turn out and the responses we got from people who attended. I really enjoyed that day and all the work that went towards just a few hours is mind boggling. We had way more people than we thought we would which is a good and a bad thing. I don’t know if event planning is for me but I really enjoyed the fast pace work and getting to meet a lot of new people. I think I have learned new things with technology from working two social media pages and creating ad material. I also have learned a lot about myself and how to better myself as an employee and a person.

• Did you achieve the goals you set during your performance evaluation? How so?

I really wanted to gain experience with event planning and thats a lot of what I did with BrightEyes. I’m glad I got it and I feel more confident with that part of my degree now. I think that I’ve grown as a professional and a student. I’m more confident in my professional work and I really like feeling like more an adult with a real job and real priorities.

• How do you feel you were mentored?

My supervisors were wonderful to me during this whole time. I think because this was so new to them as well, we didn’t know how to handle certain situations and had to figure things out together as we went. They were very accepting to new ideas and always invited me to help them with anything I was interested in. I never felt neglected or like I wasn’t needed and thats such a great feeling as an intern. When I worked for NBC during the debate I was a runner and I felt most of the time that if I didn’t show up it wouldn’t make a difference to them. But with BrightEyes I know that I am apart of a family that is dependent on each other and needs every member of our team to function and work correctly. I feel like I was a valued member of their team and I appreciated that more than anything. I also loved having my professors and fellow students to lean on. I always feel the support from the COMMunity with any endeavor that I go on and that’s why I love my major and my school.

• Would you suggest this organization/company to future students seeking internships?

I would definitely suggest that future students pursue working for BrightEyes. My supervisor is keeping me on next semester but is looking for a student who would want to complete a 392. I think that this experience has been one of the best decisions I have made since coming to Longwood and I’m so thankful for the opportunity. I’m tempted to keep it to myself but I know thats selfish so I think other students could really benefit from this opportunity. They will learn a lot of valuable things about working in the real world and it will change their view of a lot of things involving small businesses.

Work Samples:

The first picture is our Twisted Tuesday segment on our Facebook page. I answer audience questions about alpaca fiber from posts and comments on our page and put them in that form for the answer. The second is similar. That is our Alpaca Fact Friday segment which is the same thing but just answers general alpaca questions, not just fiber questions. I’ve done these since the first week I started my internship and I’ll continue them until the first week of June.

I ended up making two of these post cards on Pages. This one is for our farm tourism and the other one I made is for the airBnB that is held on the farm as well. These turned out to be a good ad to put out because all we had to do was stamp the back and the flyers could be mailed out to interested audience members. I also did a brochure that is not featured here that summarized what our girls personalities are and facts about the farm.

The first picture here is one of our countdown ads that we ran on social media for our April 1st Open Barn. All the pictures I used were of our girls and I made these bold type overlays and uploaded them to let our audience know to set their calendars. The other picture is of one of the flyers I made that were hung all over Farmville and Lynchburg. The printing service on campus ended up hating me after all of this but when we asked people how they heard about our event they said Facebook and our flyers so I guess I did a good job.

I don’t have two pictures of me working at my internship but Dr. Naomi saw me working at one of our events and my supervisor would have no problem vouching that I really did work.

Chrissi Venier
04/07/17
Journal #5
WC: 349

What 2 communication theories have you witnessed during your internship? Explain the theories and explain your observations. For example have you had to frame messages a certain way? Or you have you dealt with misunderstandings that could be explained by symbolic interactionism?

During my internship, I have witnessed a few communication theories acted out in reality. Because internships require constant contact and open dialogue, there is a lot of room for communication theories to take place.

One of the communication theories I witnessed take place during my internship was Cognitive Dissonance Theory, or the theory that people actively attempt to change views that they have to avoid conflict with another person. I disagreed with a few decisions that my supervisor as made during my internship but because I know she’s the owner and ultimately the decisions are hers I stay quiet about some of my beliefs. But as time goes on I feel myself starting to agree with her decisions, not because they follow what I align myself with, but because it’s easier to avoid any kind of negative emotion when I pretend that I think something she does is a good idea. I can understand that she is taking ultimately responsibility for whatever goes on media connected to her name and its much easier to continue a professional relationship when you don’t have negative feelings.

I think that in most internships, Standpoint Theory is present. Standpoint Theory says that relationships follow a certain hierarchy and dependent on a persons position in the relationship they act accordingly. For example, my supervisor considers jobs such as asking for donations from local business owners and discussing their future involvement in the business as something that I should find simple to do. But these business owners typically prefer to discuss topics like where there money goes something to be discussed between adults. This is something I considered when that job was asked of me and I had a feeling they would rather talk to her. When I told her I only received two donations from all of the people I visited and that it might have been a better idea for her to join me she thought that was silly. But when she came along with me, we received many more donations because she seemed much more trustworthy as the owner of the business.