An Intern’s Take: Being Part of the Team

Sarah Wagner, Broadreach Public Relations Intern reflects on her summer spent with Broadreach.

Sarah Wagner

Over the ten weeks of my summer internship, lessons and skills shared by those in the office will be useful in both my last year of schooling at the University of Maine and my professional career. One of the first notable aspects about Broadreach is the open concept office with a small team of professionals. Personally, the office environment was shocking at first, but it was clear this setting reassures constant collaboration on various projects.

Which brings me to my first takeaway; when professors tell you that group work is important– they are not lying. Teamwork ranges from office culture to assisting others with client projects, even asking someone to review a press release before it is sent. Many tasks within the office tend to have two or more people working at the same time. Also, the importance of having as many people review/edit your work is highlighted at Broadreach and is essential to the public relations field. Others can offer different perspectives you may not have recognized before or even catch a simple grammatical error that your eyes could have missed.

The question of “What are you going to do when you graduate?” often finds its way into conversation as I tell people I am a communication major. It is a difficult question for me to answer currently, but there are a variety of communication fields that I can explore. People don’t often realize how interdisciplinary the communication field is, and Broadreach showed me an example within the public relations field.

I cannot thank those at Broadreach enough for accepting me into their office and mentoring me throughout the summer. It was an interesting and eye-opening to experience the daily routines of a public relations professional and it certainly has shaped my personal thoughts concerning my career.

by Sarah Wagner, 2018 Broadreach Public Relations Intern