Download Meredith Sneddon - Oxford Brookes University

My experience as an intern in the TDE Marketing team
By Meredith Sneddon, Marketing Intern 2013-2014
My time as a TDE marketing intern has given me a wide breadth of
experience in many vital areas of marketing. The internship has been
split into two main focuses, events and news and PR. An
understanding of these areas as well as chances to participate in
other key areas of marketing such as social media and marketing
analytics has provided me with a good foundation and general
knowledge of how marketing works. Being able to participate in a
wide variety of marketing tasks and strategies has allowed me to better understand my own skills,
areas I need to improve on as well as highlight those which I would like to pursue afterwards; in this
case I hope to follow a career in the publishing industry.
This academic year there have been two interns who rotate every six months. The importance of having
a fellow intern through this process cannot be understated; it has allowed us to learn from someone
going through the same process and share information.
Thus far into my internship I have occupied the events role as well as social media. As part of the
events role I have participated in the planning and execution of two University wide Open Days,
Ashmolean LiveFriday and a large number of other smaller events such as Postgraduate Fairs. The
planning of these events has greatly developed my organisation skills and my ability to juggle multiple
deadlines at any one time. As part of the social media role I helped in the running of the faculty’s six
Twitter and six Facebook accounts as well as gaining an understanding of the wider online marketing
strategy. Another aspect which I have been able to invest in has been design and photography,
something which I am passionate about and the team has given me the space to pursue this in
creating flyers, posters, leaflets and I am currently working with the other interns to produce the six
annual alumni newsletters. As a marketing team we produce a significant amount of marketing
materials all of which require careful production which and are accompanied by a large amount of
photography, I have found this aspect of the job very rewarding and an opportunity to understand
how branding works in both a marketing and wider context.
Whilst I am only five months into my internship I have already learnt a wide number of skills as well as
understanding areas I need to improve upon to help with my career development. The marketing team
have greatly invested in us as interns providing training in InDesign, video editing and countless other
skills required for marketing and all of this is on top of the intern development training scheme. This
level of training and personal investment will not be found in many other jobs straight out of
university. Whilst you may only be in the role for a year the team are very keen to invest in you
professionally and personally and have been very patient and helpful with all areas of the role. It is an
incredible opportunity which will be found in very few other jobs.