A “Whale” of a Summer
Written by Janey Murray, a member of Delta Phi Epsilon.
I have always loved to write. Since I was young, I have wanted to pursue a career as a writer, in some shape or form. Shortly before college, I decided to major in journalism, and determined that the Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication at UGA would be the perfect place to do that.
Throughout my sophomore year last year, I decided that I wanted to devote my summer to an internship in journalism or public relations to develop my writing and communication skills. After a long process of applying to every internship I could find and going to several different interviews, I finally landed a public relations internship at Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta for the summer of 2017.
Throughout my internship, I acquired great experience to prepare me for a future career in communications. In addition, I got to spend every day of the week with whale sharks, African penguins, Beluga whales, sea otters and more!
As a public relations intern, I did a variety of different tasks along with the two other interns. I wrote several blog articles that were posted on the Georgia Aquarium website, wrote and published social media posts on the Georgia Aquarium Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts, communicated with Atlanta media outlets and helped with the production of Facebook Live videos, among many other exciting tasks. As an added perk, I even got to meet a penguin behind the scenes at the Aquarium!
One of the coolest parts of my internship was that every day, I could go into the Aquarium from my office behind the scenes and check out all the amazing animals that live there. There is nothing more stunning than standing in front of the Ocean Voyager gallery, home of the whale sharks and many other ocean animals, and watching the gentle giants swim by every day of the week.
I would encourage everyone to try to pursue a summer internship at some point in their college career. Not only did I gain invaluable experience that will help me in applying for jobs in the future, but I had so much fun and made great connections with the Georgia Aquarium communications team. These amazing experiences made for an o-FISH-ally amazing summer!
