Agency Experience During a Pandemic
Hi, my name is Dipanshi Agarwal and I am a junior advertising major with a double concentration in copywriting and brand strategy & research. I worked as the copywriting intern at Chatterblast Media starting May 2020. At that point, the company had been hoping to be back in the office by June. It’s laughable to think about that now.
When I first started the internship, it felt like I was thrown to the wolves because it was just me, alone in front of the laptop, not really knowing if asking that one question was going to make me look like I couldn’t handle myself. But the people I worked with were more than accommodating and helped me understand my role and let me adjust at my speed which helped tremendously. So much so that when I was invited back for another semester, I was able to reach out to them and ask if I could also do some work on brand strategy since that’s another one of my concentrations. To date, I have worked on over twenty blogs for various clients, written copy for countless social media posts, created a successfully implemented creative campaign for a new client, and done peer audits and self audits for different clients. I strongly believe this internship was a huge stepping stone for my career in advertising. Before this internship, I barely knew how to write copy for social media or how to craft creative campaigns but now I’m more confident in my skills and actually have some content for my portfolio!
Aside from everything I learned, I also made really great relationships with the people I worked with. Obviously things might’ve been different if I could’ve experienced everything in-person but my mentor, Kristen, never made me feel like I was being a burden on her and was always ready to give me advice on my work. Another thing that probably would not have happened if weren’t for the pandemic is us bonding over our shared love for Animal Crossing, a game that gained a huge boost in popularity as it came out right when the pandemic started.
Overall, I believe working at Chatterblast gave me a unique experience of working at a social media agency and I am grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to be a “JuniorBlaster”. I am also excited to branch out and work under other areas of advertising and become a more well-rounded writer and creative.
Hi, Dipanshi! I’m so glad that you enjoyed your experience at Chatterblast despite the virtual circumstances. I related to a lot about your experience with navigating a brand new job with just you and your laptop — it truly did feel like we were being thrown to the wolves! It took me about the first 3 weeks of my internship to get acclimated with everything, which being in person this adjustment probably would have been much quicker. I also had high hopes of being able to go and visit the office once or twice during my program, which was also wishful thinking on my end. Though both of our experiences were virtually, I’m glad that both of us as writers were able to gain more knowledge and experience in the field.
Hi Dipanshi! Congrats on being asked to stay on for another semester interning at Chatterblast! Your first paragraph was so relatable in the sense of feeling alone while starting a new job remotely. I am glad we both overcame this feeling and got more comfortable working online. I also had the opportunity to have a very supportive mentor during the course of my internship. The relationships I created are so important and have set the ground work for my success in the advertising industry. I am so happy to hear you had so many positive thoughts from this experience. I wish you the best of luck next semester!