I remember nervously walking out of one of King’s Cross St Pancras Station’s numerous exits searching for the 7 Stanley Building. I wandered through the morning rush in the heart of London, and I was overwhelmed, out of place and my heart was pounding on my first day as an intern at Pythian. Now I am sitting comfortably at my familiar desk with my Pythian notebook coming towards the end of my 10-week internship here, and I am pleased to say I have loved every moment.
I am currently a business and marketing university student and successfully applied for the internship after I found out about the opportunity through one of my fellow students. I worked as an intern in the newly established UK Sales Department in a fast-paced and growing team. My Internship at Pythian has been my first internship in a real, professional environment and it was excellent as it boosted my skills and development and I got to really see the inner workings of a successful organisation and understand how all the pieces of the company worked together towards a common purpose – Love Your Data. During my time here I have witnessed numerous deals closed, assisted with the booking of hotels and event marketing. Attended a Cricket match, Google event, met our CEO and purchased exercise balls to replace chairs. I was worried that a business admin internship would be repetitive and boring, but that is not the case here, every day I am faced with new exciting challenges and a variety of projects to get stuck into.
For me, the highlight of my internship was heading the social media campaign for our Love Your Data London event that was held at one of Google’s HQs. A majority of my time had been spent cleaning our data and creating new systems for our salesforce. I was taken aback that I was being trusted with such a big responsibility and a large budget, but it was such an amazing opportunity to build up my marketing skills and contribute to my team and to the event. I campaigned our event on Twitter and LinkedIn and after some trial and error to perfect the adverts, managed to sell my first £200 ticket. I was overwhelmed with happiness; I had done it! I had never done anything like this before, as a business student, there is only so much you can learn about businesses and how they operate just by sitting in a lecture. At Pythian, I got to experience the world of business every day. I was now a self-proclaimed profitable business woman and my team were so proud of me.
I love being apart of the Sales team and from the beginning it was made clear to me that everyone works together to help each other, no-one tries to take credit for anyone else’s work. I appreciated how in a sales environment where the atmosphere can be stressful everyone would pull together to cheer each other up and celebrate each other’s accomplishments with friendships that extended to outside of the office. While working in my team, I was truly treated as an equal being asked for my thoughts and opinions on different matters and taking responsibility for projects. I was included in training, events and all work perks. From the start, I felt like a valued professional employee, not just an intern.
In hindsight, it is clear that I have learnt so much from this company and this team in such a short space of time. I have transformed from being computer illiterate to Loving my Data in 10 weeks. Every day was a new learning opportunity and a chance to develop and contribute to the team. In the stressful Sales department my colleagues showed me true work ethic and dedication and how much they all love their jobs. It is incredible to look back at all the time I’ve spent here and the only thing that I’m sad about is how quickly it is coming to an end. But I know I’ll be back.
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