By: Wyatt Carlson
What is the best way to stick out amongst the large stack of applications when applying for an internship in college? Nothing stands out more than real, genuine, hands-on experience. During my time at Flypaper Creative Services, a re
quired practicum for Integrated Advertising and Public Relations majors at MSUM (Minnesota State University Moorhead). I have been able to work directly with clients, establish connections within the community, develop professional coursework, and have been pushed outside of my comfort zone.
1. Hands-on Client Work
Flypaper gives students the immediate opportunity to work with clients as soon as their semester starts. Over two required semesters students get to speak directly with clients, manage their accounts, produce projects from start to finish, and hand over final deliverables. Whether you’re making phone calls or executing tasks such as social media management. Experience is garnered quickly at Flypaper. When interviewing for an internship in college, one of the first questions you may get is, “What kind of experience do you have outside your coursework?”. Having a practicum built into your major can put you a step above the competition as you near graduation.
2. Presence and Connections in the Community
Typical clients that work with Flypaper are small businesses and non-profits in the Fargo Moorhead community. Many clients that work with Flypaper tend to talk to their friends in their respective industries. Word of mouth is the best marketing tool out there. Whether its clients advocating for Flypaper’s services to other business owners, or clients advocating for your hard work and skills that contributed to their projects, being a part of Flypaper is a wonderful thing. As a student enrolled in the practicum, Flypaper gives you access to many professional advisors. These advisors are real people in the marketing industry that act as a resource for feedback on all work students produce. Making connections with these advisors can be very beneficial in your path out of college. As they say, it’s all about who you know. As of this year, Flypaper celebrated its grand re-opening. This celebration allowed for recognition from the FM Chamber of Commerce during a ribbon cutting ceremony. During the ceremony many students were able to connect and network with professionals in attendance and establish rapport with potential employers. The future is bright for Flypaper Creative Services.
3. Professional Development Coursework
One of the biggest things students wonder when registering for classes is what the coursework will consist of. Within this practicum, the daily work consists of working within teams to meet the client’s needs in a timely and effective way. Outside of this, Flypaper offers students the opportunity to learn things they have not learned during their time in other courses. From LinkedIn coursework, online portfolio development assignments, and resume strengthening. Students gain soft skills and the ability to stand out to employers when applying for internships and jobs online.
4. Comfort Zone Who?
As a student in this practicum, weekly assignments are non-existent. To excel and grow at Flypaper, you must learn to be okay being uncomfortable sometimes. Whether it's making cold calls to prospective clients or being the barer of unwelcome news and telling a client that what they want is outside of our scope of work, this practicum teaches you to say yes first and to figure things out along the way. Generating new business is essential for any agency. Work comes and work goes. The challenge is keeping it flowing. Establishing good repour with clients and asking people in the local community if they would be interested in Flypaper’s services can take you a long way. Whether you may know it or not, doing things like this during your time in Flypaper can be major talking points to nail that interview you managed to set up.
5. Make the Most of It
If you’re like me, you may have taken many classes over the years that you paid attention in, studied for the test, and forgot everything within the following week. A practicum can easily be treated the same way, but it would be a disservice to yourself in doing so. A practicum is a steppingstone for nailing a solid internship. If you treat each moment of your time in Flypaper seriously, and dedicate your time in class to being focused, you’ll find yourself picking up skills and advocating for yourself unknowingly. Each hour you spend in this practicum you can spend teaching yourself things such as how to write a formal client facing email, Adobe Illustrator to design a logo, or a website tool to update layout for a client.
Landing an internship can be difficult for students in every major. Making use of your time in a practicum can give you experiences and stories when interviewing for an internship that others may not have. The experiences you gain during your time at Flypaper aren’t granted, but earned through hard work and dedication. Teach yourself to grow, give yourself the experience to answer those hard questions, and make yourself stand out!
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