Interning in a Pharmaceutical Setting during COVID-19

This semester, I am the copywriting intern at Digitas Health (DH). My experience with DH so far has truly been indescribable. I have had so many incredible opportunities as an intern, some of which include creating social media posts for a client (which I got to present to our actual client), and also getting to partner with our art direction intern on two different projects. We got to create a super fun bullet journal for a women-empowerment group within our company so that everyone can create and track their work from home goals, as well as working on posts for DH’s social media accounts.

After this experience, I am very determined to continue working as a copywriter in a pharmaceutical setting. The positive aspects that I have gained during my time at DH seem like too many to count, but the main one is growing as a creative writer. Pharmaceutical advertising has lead me to realize just how much creativity is involved when creating work for medical brands. I have also met so many people who inspire me every day I’m “in” the office, but the main person is my manager. She has won several awards for her work, and she really teaches me something new every day.

This experience has been more amazing than I thought it would be, especially with my program being completely virtual. I knew that this was going to be an incredible opportunity interning with DH, but it truly has surpassed my expectations. When I accepted the position, I still wasn’t sure if pharma was where I wanted to be. But after getting so much real-world, valuable experience as a copywriter, I know that this is what I want my career to be. If I could have done anything differently, I might have made myself a little more presentable on camera. Though I wasn’t in my pajama’s or anything like that, I wish I would have taken the extra time to put on makeup or style my hair each day.

My advice to others looking to apply for their first internship is to express your eagerness to learn, and work hard to back it up. This was my first internship, I had no other experience outside of work that I have created at Temple. But I think the reason why I got my position was because of how eager I was to learn and work hard. Being three months into my program, I am still just as eager and hard-working as I was during my interview. I think that this quality speaks louder than any other. If I could pinpoint one specific thing that I learned during this internship, it would be the partnership between a copywriter and an art director. It truly is the coolest collaboration, and it ultimately results in brilliant work that you can be proud of.