Hi! I’m Claudia and I’m a second-year International Business student in HAMK Valkeakoski. I spent four months in Design Factory as a trainee from May to August. So here is my journey as an intern in Design Factory.
The start of the journey
All started almost a year ago when one of my lecturer asked me to join as a volunteer in Kasva ja Kansainvälisty Event. Of course, I agreed on coming as a volunteer, since I wanted to help and I had beforehand some experience in event planning. During the event, I proposed to make good network connections considering my upcoming future and it really worked. One month after the event, I received an email informing that HAMK is in the process of building a new platform which will be the Design Factory concept and they will need one more team member. Only knowing the fact that they were considering me as a team member made my entire week full of joy.
The Interview
And so far the day for the interview was set. It felt like my heart wanted to pump out of my chest!
Yes, I have never been that nervous and so happy at the same time. During the interview, the whole team was asking me questions of my previous workplaces and how I manage priorities. But, suddenly somehow my stress level landed and at that particular moment, I realized that they are going to hire me. I got a weird Déjà-vu moment which I cannot forget. After, the interview the Design Factory team showed and introduced me to the building.
I got the place!
On April 17th of 2019, I got an e-mail informing me that the internship place was all mine. Even though during the interview I had the weird Déjà-vu moment I could not believe or even imagine that first-year student could be on such an important upgoing project. My internship job title was going to be a marketing trainee however, the team informed me beforehand, that there may appear other upcoming working tasks.
The prime Working tasks
My working task consisted mainly of marketing on social media HAMK’s new upcoming platform and bring forward the new achievements of Design Factory. However, the first week I was mainly observing and participating in Design Factory courses, although Amazing Business Train was one of the courses in which I wrote an article for the purpose of introducing my journey experience to other students. In the article, I wanted to bring in the characteristics of co-creation, interdisciplinary co-collaboration and the new kind of passion-based learning by doing.
The other Working tasks
The beginning of the Design Factory consisted of different types of tasks.
Here below involved working tasks:
–Event planning and organizing.
-Design Factory space: design, spaces improvement, innovation, and organizing working tasks.
-Design Factory design and development itself.
-Vinyl cutter day to day designer for space marketing and improvement purposes.
-Illustrator and Photoshop day to day user while using the vinyl cutter.
-Photography and communication skills were needed in most of the working tasks.
– Additionally, adaptability and flexibility were one of many characteristics that were needed during the journey as a marketing trainee.
As a trainee
In the duration of my internship, I learned numerous different kind of skills and mindsets. That now on reinforce me as a person and as well as a future professional. One of the many mindsets comes through all the personnel and professionals who advised me that you only learn by doing. Learning by doing sometimes is not the most pleasant way of working since I experience that there is a room for mistakes and imperfections. As a trainee, I personally worked on giving myself a bit of mercy and try to do the best I could since a perfect person does not exist. Now my creativity and innovative thinking are even more boosted than ever since this mindset helped me to keep going in a bold way.
I am already missing my internship place!
I will miss giving my point of views and having a constructive conversation with professionals, that have massive knowledge and also can guide me. Also, during my internship place, I had the possibility of expanding my network connections. I was so thrilled when Charles Camarda accepted me as a LinkedIn connection since I always had admired astronauts. But back to the track, this internship place has given me a whole different point of view on how big organizations work together and added assets for my future.
-Claudia
