By Juliet Akiga

Just weeks after submitting my last paper at university, I realised that getting my foot in the door wasn’t as easy as people made it seem. Recently, I attended a CIPR event and became determined to break into energy PR. So I went straight to the PRCA website to look for internships and decided to contact every agency. Luckily, I didn’t have to go too far to find one with the right focus for me, and I had soon secured an internship at Aspectus.

My first day arrived and I received a warm welcome from the team. It was exciting to get stuck in straight away, but before I knew it, it was 5:30pm and I genuinely didn’t want to go home. I was doing the dream job that I’d studied for, and I didn’t want to stop. I’ve been at Aspectus for a week now and I’ve quickly picked up the ropes; I’m using new tools every day and I’m learning a lot just from being part of the energy team.

Aspectus has great relationships with many niche publications – and that has started to teach me about the quality of readership. In some cases, this is much more important than circulation figures. The office itself is a hive of activity, but there are times when everyone has their heads down too. It’s a good balance between quiet concentration and people bouncing ideas off their colleagues.

Over a week I have learnt that no two days are the same. Although I’d heard this before, I definitely believe it now! One day you’re having lunch with a journalist (which happened on my second day in the office) and the next, you’re securing coverage for a client or preparing a briefing book for media interviews, all of which is pretty great for an intern in her first week on the job.

I can’t wait to see what the future might hold!