Internship Experience Essay

I preformed my Alameda Community Learning Center internship in the summer between my junior and senior year. An opportunity arose with a market research and evaluation firm that was perfect for me. It played on my strengths as a learner and was a small piece of work that the company needed to have done. The company had a multiyear contract with the state of California to figure out if a large advertising campaign was effective.

The company I worked for, Opinion Dynamics Corporation, is located in Oakland, CA. The actual work that I did for them was not at their office, as I worked on my computer in my house. I set up appointments to meet initially with my boss, figured out what I needed to do and kept in touch via email and phone to clarify problems and questions about the analysis. Ultimately, I delivered spreadsheets of information that have been used since my internship.

During my internship experience, I was involved in collecting and analyzing data for Flex Your Power’s summer campaign. Flex Your Power is an advertising campaign for the state of California promoting energy efficiency. To collect the data, I used the internet (where the advertisements were located) and Microsoft Excel (to write about what I saw and heard). Then to analyze the data, I used Microsoft Excel once again, and Microsoft Word to begin an analysis write up.

On a daily basis, I did pretty much the same thing. I would log-in to the online account where Flex Your Power had put all of their radio, television, and online advertisements. Then I would open up my ongoing excel document and would add on to it. There were columns that had me describe what I was seeing or hearing and others that would help explain what the advertisement was asking you (as people) to do. Some of these advertisements were in other languages in order to reach more people.

After finishing the data collection way earlier than expected, I began to create charts and tables that counted up how many advertisements were in English or how many mentioned containing dishwashers. These tables helped with the analysis part of my internship. Once done with my charts, I began to write up a page of description to allow a real analyst to have a starting point.

I basically learned what it takes to be an analyst who assesses energy efficiency programs. My favorite experience of the internship wasn’t necessarily the internship itself, but every time I hear one of the advertisements on TV or on the radio, I stop and think, “Hey, I had a part in analyzing those.” I guess I would say the biggest obstacle in my internship was going to quickly and my boss having to come up with what to do with me for the allotted time. In conclusion, I loved my internship and I am now more likely to go into the field where I need to look carefully at things to analyze them because of my internship.