For CNM majors, Year 3 is the time to embark on the Compulsory Internship Programme (CIP), whether you choose to do it in Semester 1 or 2.
But have you always felt a little bit lost on how to apply for internships and wanted to know what others’ experiences in CIP felt like?
In this article on our CNMTypes Blog, we got some CNM seniors to share about their internship experience in CIP and they provided some tips and advice for those applying for internships in the upcoming semesters.
Meet Janice
Janice is a 4th Year, CNM Major and she managed to source for her internship through NUS Talent Connect. For her CIP, she worked as a Digital Communications intern in an agency and she mainly managed social media for clients and also touched on PR and Design roles.
In her internship experience, she realized that things were very fast-paced in an agency, and that time management and communication were essential. Speaking to Janice, she said, “At one point, I was juggling 5 projects for totally different industries, so I had to learn how to prioritize and time myself when it came to my duties.”
Recalling the time spent interning at an agency, she also mentioned the good times when she had lunches with her colleagues. “As per agency life, work gets crazy sometimes and I occasionally needed to pull some overtime to complete a project with my team. I thought this sucked at first, but as it turns out, having the office to ourselves was actually fun as we openly discussed strategies while ordering in food to snack on as we worked away.”
Janice also had a piece of advice which was to be confident and to be able to express yourself well during an interview. Interviews are not only a way for the employer to learn more about you but also for you to learn more about the employer. In her words, “treat the interview as a relaxed conversation with an atas friend and be curious about them”. Words of wisdom, Janice!
Meet Janine
Our second CNM senior to share about her CIP experience is Janine, who worked under the podcast arm of Our Grandfather Story, called Something Private. As an intern, she was in charge of branding, production, social media engagement and monitoring.
“For branding, it was about helping to make new content and sticking to a direction for a new season. I worked closely with my supervisor on how to package it. For production, since we work at OGS, our crew was helping us set up and determine how to shoot since it was a vodcast. I did most of the behind-the-scenes work like ensuring whether the audio could be heard,” Janine explained.
When asked what she liked about her internship, she thought that “the work environment was great and [she] loved collaborating with like-minded, inspiring content creators who brought original content!” If you love creating different kinds of content and engaging in social media, this might be a role suitable for you!
As someone who self-sourced for her internship, Janine advises her juniors not to be afraid of emailing to as many companies as possible. You never know which dream company might come back to you with an interview offer.
Meet Jewel
Our third feature for this article is Jewel, who is also a 4th Year CNM student who worked at Thir.st Collective. As an editorial intern, she wrote articles weekly and this ranged from writing formal articles to opinion and reflection pieces.
Jewel got to pitch her own ideas and interviewed people for her articles, which she really enjoyed. As she liked getting the opportunity to interact with different people, she found her role exciting. She was also able to explore different kinds of writing styles as a writer.
However, some of the challenges she faced was dealing with the work from home culture, which she thought blurred the lines between rest and work. She said, “I like to work efficiently so I worked hard for 6-7 hours a day…I didn’t know whether this was ‘correct’ or not, but [what was most important was that] I was productive.”
Through her internship, she was able to get a glimpse into the media industry and she became better at interviewing people and at writing.
As for what she has to tell her juniors, she says to “choose something that you are personally interested in…More than the practical aspect of choosing to go to a particular company…choosing something you’ll like is important as well. And to do that, it’s also important to find out if the company culture is one that you’ll enjoy.”
Takeaways
Whether you are considering to intern as a PR, podcasting or editorial intern, there are many roles that you can apply for as a CNM student. Always remember to be confident in expressing yourself, apply for as many internships beforehand and choose something that you will enjoy doing. After all, an internship also helps you discover your passions and interests.
We thank our seniors for sharing their CIP experiences with us, and for giving some solid advice to our juniors! If you would like for us to feature more CIP experiences, give this article a like and comment down below. 🙂
We hope this has given you a better idea of the different types of CIP experiences out there, and that every internship is a learning opportunity that you can seize. P.s: If you haven't already, subscribe to the CNM Jobs Telegram channel to get the latest deets on CIP opportunities here!
See you at our next article 😁
Comments