Erin Lister:
How my internship at Fitwise relates to my programme at University
I am currently studying a joint honours degree in Festival & Event and Marketing Management at Edinburgh Napier University and as part of the 3rdyear of my course I have had the pleasure of working with Fitwise Management Ltd. on a 20-week placement. It is strongly recommended that the students on my course go out on a work experience placement as part of their programme of study in order to gain relative experience of the industry. Running events is not something that you can just teach yourself by reading a textbook; therefore, it is vital to gain practical experience in a workplace in order to put theory into practice. Throughout my internship I have been assisting Fitwise’s Event Managers with the organisation of upcoming projects in order to gain experience and learn about the healthcare events industry.
Before beginning my placement, I set myself a number of objectives that I wanted to meet and these were chosen in line with my university coursework to give me a basis for relating theory to practice.
These objectives came from 3 categories:
In order to measure that I am on track to meet these goals, I monitor my progress through a logged journal at home of experiences and challenges that I have overcome in relation to my objectives.
Apart from the couple of small events that I have organised at university in groups, I have never had any experience within the conference and events industry. My internship at Fitwise has opened my eyes to the amount of planning, detail and preparation that must go in to each project. During the 2ndyear of my course, whilst studying Conference Management, one of the tasks within this module was to do a mock venue search with a conference specification. I have now been able to do this task during my internship by researching venues with a client specification and creating a venue proposal to send out to the client. The introduction to venue searching within the Conference Management module at university helped me whilst I was creating an event proposal for Fitwise’s clients.
As well as the aforementioned example, there have been many other tasks that I have completed within my time here that have benefitted my learning greatly and that I have been able to relate back to what I have been studying at university. Not only has my placement here benefitted me academically, but I also feel it has benefitted me personally.
Like starting any new job, I was nervous at first; however, from my first day, the team at Fitwise have made me feel so welcome. I feel that my confidence has improved greatly due to doing a lot of independent work. This autonomous way of working has also enabled me to develop time management skills. On a daily bases I work from a to-do as I need to manage numerous tasks at once and work to deadlines, which is something that I have never had to do in a job before. As Fitwise are a company who work very closely together, by working alongside and communicating with event managers and helping them with their planning of projects, I feel that I have also been able to develop my teamwork skills. Also being a part of Fitwise’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) group, attending regular meetings and brain storming ideas with the other team members, has helped to improve my team working ability.
I am so grateful to all of the staff members at Fitwise for welcoming me into their close team and helping me to gain the most out of my time here. All the skills, both academic and personal, that I have developed during my internship, I can take forward to my final year at university. These skills will help to better my learning at university and then I will be able to take them further, into the working world, once I have graduated.
