A day in the life of a DP Intern

A peek into what a day of interning at Different Perspective is like

by David Swanberg, Communications Intern
 

From what I can tell, an internship with Different Perspective is different from most others. Other internships have you sitting at a desk all day doing work that doesn’t necessarily challenge you or feels repetitive not really allowing you to stretch your legs or challenging you to get out of your comfort zone.

At DP, everyone encourages you to be a part of the team, allowing you to sit in on client meetings and make important decisions. Not only that, but the team here is a close-knit group of fantastic individuals who are experts in their field and know how to bring out the best in anyone that interns with them.

Here’s a look at how one of my days as a Different Perspective intern went.
 

6:30 am

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up I noticed I was late
Found my phone and grabbed my bag
Made the train in seconds flat.*
 

*Some creative credit must go to ‘A Day in The Life’ by the Beatles
 
7:45 am

Every morning, I ride the 8:00 am SunRail from DeBary, Florida to the Church Street station in Orlando, Florida – the closest stop to the DP office. There’s a lady at the DeBary station who must work for the station as she is always there. I can’t hear her too well over the engine whirring in the background, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to say something to me every morning.

I then find my way onto the train and up the stairs. I take my seat on the second floor and pull out a book. At this time in the morning the train is usually empty, aside from a few of the regular faces.
 

9:00 am

I finally make it to the DP office. As I walk in, the usual orange colored walls greet me and, as intended, invoke my inner psyche with a sense of creativity and joy. Another day in paradise. I make my way into the office and greet Eloise and Lauren with the usual “good morning” that they are so accustomed to hearing. Consistency is the key to success, and success is something our team oozes. After taking my seat at my desk, the first thing I do every morning is read up on all of the latest local and national news of the past 24 hours that I may have missed.  
 

9:25 am

After getting informed, I take a look at my Asana (project management tool) to see what tasks Priscilla or Eloise have assigned for me. An easy day. Just a blog post and a discovery meeting; both are due by the end of the day. Deadlines are no match for me, so I immediately get to work on researching a topic for the blog.
 

10:03 am

FIRE ALARM! Unfortunately, Hugo and Priscilla were in the middle of a client meeting when the prerecorded voice of a woman came on over the speakers and started saying that there was a fire. At first, we weren’t sure what was going on, as none of us have heard this woman’s voice before. It wasn’t until Hugo came into the room à la Michael Scott from The Office and told us to get out of the building that we started moving.

We made our way down the crowded eastern staircase and out the back of the building. Hugo and Priscilla were still wrapping up their meeting when our other intern, Rachel, mentioned something about us going to Dunkin’, where we would wait for the fire panic to subside.
 

10:41 am

After the morning we had, which was about as fast as a pace could keep, I was ready to get back to the office to finish up that blog I started earlier. With the sound of ‘Thunder’ by Imagine Dragons playing softly in the background, I got to work writing.
 

11:45 am

I made some great progress on the blog and I was now ready to send it off to Eloise for review. Typically, we bounce projects back and forth between each other and give each other tips. It is nice being able to gain her different perspective, and I feel like I have become a much more self-aware writer during my time here.
 

12:00 pm

Lunch, the second most important meal of the day. Periodically throughout the month, the team will go out to lunch somewhere around town. On this particular day, we’re all forced to fend for ourselves and hunt for our own food. Days like this usually prompt me to go to places like Latin Square or Gitto’s Pizza, two of my favorite eateries in the Downtown area.
 

1:00 pm

Back at it. We’re due to have a discovery meeting with a client today around 1:30. A new client of ours, Erika Jordan of Hyperbaric Healing Treatment Center, just recently signed on and now it’s time for her to meet the creative team. Discovery meetings like these really help you gain an understanding of the client and help you form a consistent voice for them that will be used throughout their digital marketing campaigns, blogs, email blasts and social media channels. They also give you a chance to get away from the computer!
 

2:30 pm

A successful meeting if I do say so myself, and I do. We all learned a lot about our new client, the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and just how special the work they are doing there is. Now I have to type up notes on that meeting so we can reference later on.
 

3:00 pm

After finishing up the notes, I send it off to Eloise to add some of her own angles. She sends me back that blog from earlier with some notes on how I can improve the writing and overall message. It can be easy to get off track and accidentally ramble on. It helps to remember that if a post or blog is too wordy, it will become boring as the viewer reads. I constantly remind myself this, as I’ve fallen into this trap and needed to streamline blogs many times before.  
 

3:30 pm

At this point, I have an hour left, and pretty much everything on today’s schedule has been crossed off. It’s at this point that I ask Priscilla if there’s anything that I can do that’s last minute. She thinks about it, and looks at our client content marketing board and notices that I need to make some corrections to one of our clients’ social media calendar.

The social media calendars like the one I’m working on have both been challenging and fun. They allow me to add a more creative touch to my work, and I’ve enjoyed racking my brain for what type of posts would fit the client’s page and also entertain viewers. This sometimes takes many revisions, and some posts may turn out to be duds, but that’s all part of the process to accurately represent a client and send out eye-catching messages.
 

3:45 pm

It’s around this time that Hugo walks into the room and invites everyone in the office out for drinks. Of course, I can’t turn down the offer! We plan to make our way over to a local bar for happy hour at around 5:30. Until then, I have more creating and scheduling to do. I look over things I’ve done so far and make further edits. A lot of times I’ve found that many things can continuously be improved upon.
 

5:15 pm

It’s after 5 and we’re all pooped. We’ve worked all day and had our fun, now it’s time to get happy. Lauren and Rachel both have other things going on tonight, but everyone else from the office can make it, plus Eloise’s husband and my girlfriend Nikki. We’re all eager to have a good time!  

We all close up shop and make our way outside. The sun’s still out and it’s mildly chilly outside with 73° being reported on my phone’s weather app. A nice day. the venue for tonight’s debauchery is Mathers, a stylish hideaway on the third floor of a vintage furniture store from the late 1800s.
 

6:30 pm

The sun is on its way out, and so am I, soon saying goodbye to everyone and making my way over to the SunRail station in an attempt to get a ride home.
 
7:00 pm

Just a short 11 hours after last riding the train, I’m on it again to take myself back home. A benefit of being the last stop on the SunRail is that if you fall asleep on it, there’s no way you’re going to miss your stop. I do just that.

Of course, not every day is as jam-packed with as many activities as this, but days like these are the ones that stick out to me. My days here at DP have exposed me to much of the advertising world and have allowed me to grow and learn more about how to be a better writer and a more creatively minded individual. The best part: all the learning and growing was also fun! I’ll be sad to go, but as the Chinese proverb says: ‘All good things must come to an end.’
 

This internship was a great experience for me and I don’t think there’s a better place to start a career in the advertising industry than at Different Perspective!