July 28th, 2017

We have just wrapped up our third week at HLK, which means we are halfway through with the internship program. Many interns may see this halfway point as sign of relief because that means no more grunt work or going on coffee runs. However, that is not the case with HLK. As interns, we are treated like all other employees and we are given real assignments that have to do with real clients. We spend our weeks researching, creating content, and pitching projects. So while other interns may see this halfway point as a glass half empty, Team InternStellar sees it as a glass half full.

Weeks 1 and 2 seemed to fly by. That being said, week 3 did not. Our team had a very busy third week. On Monday we had a practice pitch for our first assignment. We spent many hours in our intern sweatbox* writing our ideas on the whiteboard and executing these ideas into a slideshow. So when it was time for us to pitch our campaign to our mentors, we were more than nervous. When we finished our pitch, we stood in front of the team of mentors just terrified that they were going to say they did not like the campaign. But, to our relief, they loved it. We were given feedback on some minor changes to make for the final pitch that would be later in the week. The following two days were a blur. We had less than 48 hours to make our project the best it could be. I remembered being in a dark room with Irina for what felt like hours and we worked on the images, videos, and social media posts for the campaign. All of the stress that we felt went away instantly after we ran into the cutest HLK employee..

Pilot

**·A Shiba Inu**
**·Awarded "Fluffiest Office Distraction"**
**·A real "ladies' man"**
**·The topic of most conversations**
**·Employee of the Month**

I stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning and woke up at 6 a.m. the next day to continue working on the project and double check that everything looked exactly like it should. Our team arrived to work at 8 a.m. to start practicing for the final pitch. We were nervous to say the least. But as Shelby would say, “Nerves are what motivate me.” Workers from all over the office were coming in the room one by one, filling up all of the seats. This was it. It was time for us to pitch our campaign. 30 minutes later and we completed our pitch. (Side note for future interns: you have one hour to give this pitch, a fact we so carelessly did not know, use that time!) We stood awkwardly and nervously awaiting feedback. The first person to speak started off by saying, “This was amazing!” As soon as those words left her mouth, we knew we were going to be just fine. We were given some very helpful feedback for future projects along with some positive remarks on the overall project. While the pitch was terrifying, in a good way, it was one of the best projects I have ever been a part of. I could not ask for a better team to have done this with. It is very important that you get along with your team and it is safe to say we get along.

Pitch Feedback/Tips:

Use all of the allowed time to pitch the project.
Explain the creative content more.
Dig deeper into your targeted audience and explain why they are the target audience.
The budget should be the last slide!
Finally, have an explantantion for why you chose what you chose. For example: Why you chose yellow for a font or why you chose certain images to represent the campaign.

*Intern sweatbox – The intern meeting spot, which is a tiny room on the third floor that has little airflow when the door is shut