First Week

Today I finished my first week at Nike Communications and so far I love it. Everyone has been extremely nice and friendly and it just so turns out that my supervisor is a mutual friend! Being comfortable around her definitely makes the job easier, especially during the first week. It hasn't been all smooth sailing though – I was extremely sick for the first five days of work, which made it hard to make it through the day. Luckily, having an enjoyable staff allowed made me to feel more comfortable.

Besides that minor bump in the road, I have already been learning so much. Although I am a Communications major, I know very little about the PR industry – another reason why this internship is perfect for me! Nike communications is split up into different categories, each working for different types of clients. My team works for grooming products such as The Art of Shaving, Hugo Boss fragrances, Lacoste fragrances, and James Bond fragrances. In order to allow us to get the full PR experience, the COO of the company gave all 8 interns a task that will last for the full internship. He split the interns into two groups, giving each team a client to represent. For the this week, which was the first week of our competition, each team had to come up with a PR plan, which included researching our brand and coming up with ideas to get the most media coverage for our client. This task is definitely not easy, but it is definitely helping me to understand exactly what PR is and how it works.

I also think that this job gives me great hands on experience for me to learn what it is like to work in the real world considering I have never even worked in an office before. When I walked in the office on the first day, two things came to my attention that shocked me – the dress attire and the ratio of the staff. Of course, being the first day of a new job, I decided to dress formally because I did not know the dress code, but I also wanted to look appropriate and prepared. Interestingly enough, the attire is not only casual, but EXTREMELY casual. My supervisor was even wearing converse, something I was extremely happy about. The second thing that I did not expect was there to be such a great difference in the gender ratio. The majority of the office is female, most of them being extremely young (probably about <10 years out of college). All in all, I am having a great learning experience!