Big Summer Internship has been announced at the beginning of May this year on the Bild Studio’s website. And, although most of us haven’t planned to replace spending summer on the beach, with a chair and a PC, given possibilities had quickly made us reassess our summer priorities. Extension of theoretical knowledge, practical work with experienced professionals, preparation for market needs, the possibility of employment? This was an offer that we could not refuse and that is where our story begins.
The Big Summer Internship has become a brand for itself. The best proof for this claim is a surprisingly large number of this year’s applications. This has been a surprise for Bild as well. Every and each one of us has heard about this “summer vacation” from different sources: someone has followed Bild announcements on its Facebook page, someone saw Bild announcement in faculty hallway, and someone wrote an email directly to Bild, searching answers regarding the internship. Everyone’s goal was to put in maximum effort and to deserve a place in the Big Summer Internship – a two-month opportunity for a professional development.
The main purpose of Bild Summer Internship is to transfer practical knowledge and skills to young people eager to learn more on marketing, design and IT. The original call was open for seven positions, and it was followed by a large number of applications from young enthusiasts willing to extend their knowledge and to get practical experience. It is an organized process of everyday learning with mentors through individual or mutual, theoretical and practical, work on specific projects. There is a place for both – students and graduates, so among us, there are still those who will have to engage in the August exam period. The idea behind the entire project is to have interns gain new skills and prepare themselves for the labor market. Possibility for employment after the successfully finished internship is not another flowery phrase from advertisements. Namely, out of 19 former interns, 16 became Bild employees. So, it is in everyone’s interest, to gain as much knowledge as possible within this short period of 2 months, and this was everyone’s main goal since day one.
First impression: There is a place for everything in Bild Studio, except for wasting time.
For someone who has always had a wide spectrum of interests, who studied Chemistry, and graduated in Sociology, and also has been engaged in different forms of social activism, marketing has also had my attention. Not long ago, I found out that Bild Studio has a practice of searching for young talents and working with them on boosting their potential, so from time to time I’ve checked the section “Career” on Bild’s web site searching for open vacancies. My thoughts were that I do possess basic knowledge of marketing and extraordinary will for learning and working, so when the time has come, I applied for the position of Social Media specialist. My main expectations from this internship are to be given clear guidelines for further professional improvement, through practical work and consultations with colleagues and mentors.
Ivana Grgurović: “I wish more students had a chance like this, for only now I understand how much more I need to learn to fulfill the gap from my formal marketing studies”.
The selection and recruitment process went far beyond the common pre-employment conversations of 5 cliché questions because the goal was to collect information about knowledge and motivations of every potential intern. The whole process wasn’t easy. Even at that moment, we have learned a lot about ourselves, and a lot about what it is like to work for an agency such as Bild Studio. That was the time when we first started forming expectations about becoming the part of Bild Studio’s team. All of us had different success in different tasks, and some of us even changed their status during the selection process – from student to graduate. On the first day of our internship, we all received a praise for persistence in a tough battle, which was exactly how most of us felt during the recruitment process. The final result: 12 interns and myself amongst them.
Miloš Dimić: “Of course it was a tough battle, a lot of warriors fell down in that process”.
The first day started with a mutual meeting, followed by advice, words of encouragement, representation of Bild Studio and its mentors, representation of the internship concept, what and how shall we learn. We have already been drawn into the JIRA machine and we should thank Dženita for superhuman patience. :) 12 heads and two PC monitors for each of them, with everyone trying to achieve Bild Studio motion, as quickly as possible, and to beat WorkLog assistant who is constantly reminding us on the work, that has to be done. It has been only a few weeks, but such amount of new information, tasks, and experience already create a feeling of a much longer period of being a member of a Bild team.
We work and think together, individual tasks are followed by group consultations, while technical questions are discussed with our colleagues from the IT sector. It has been several times that I heard something like: “I wasn’t even aware how much I don’t know”; which is exactly the reason why we have applied for Bild Studio internship. I.e to develop and learn as much as possible, so we could be able to reject previous theoretical doubts and to create a solid base for further learning and improvement. However, the Big Summer Internship doesn’t only guide us to become professionals in our area of practice, but it also forces us to reassess our possibilities with regard to cooperation with colleagues, concentration, and creativity.
Jovana Đuričić: “… I must emphasize that although we discover and learn a lot every day, the most important thing in this story, is the great atmosphere between the interns and between the interns and the mentors. Mentors perform their teaching task with a lot of enthusiasm and love, which consequently makes this summer educational, nice, and perhaps the best used until now.”
Veselin Kontić: “Learning. Learning. Learning. Tons of books, tutorials, different learning websites such as Pluralsight, Coursera, edX, FreeCodeCamp, Codecademy, W3Schools etc”.
Vesna Božović: “We are working on a creation of our first application. We spend part of the time on learning and exploring, and then we jointly insert changes in a code”.
Elvis Salaković: “My biggest challenge will be learning the Angular”.
Particular tasks for everyone of us have been developed in accordance with our background knowledge and wishes regarding our further position.
Veselin Kontić: “When we go through all necessary technologies, I would like if we could start developing the application, which will potentially be used by a large number of people”.
Luka Žarić: “If I am to choose the project to work upon, it would be a logo design, illustration or maybe some kind of a short animation”.
Although we intensively work every day, some of us managed to become spoiled by the Bild treatment.
Luka Žarić: “The biggest challenge is to come home and to turn on 15’’ laptop or 22’’PC, after those two that have 24’’ ”.
When I talked to my fellow-colleagues about recommending the internship to other people, as we came in, we all agreed that this is something that everyone should apply for or at least try. Because one can never know if he or she will succeed in something without taking chances. A mitigating circumstance is that everything depends on you. And, who knows, maybe Bild employees will recognize a talent in you that you even didn’t know you have.
Veselin Kontić: “It is important to have certain background knowledge in the area that you apply for, but it is not crucial. The most important characteristics the future interns should have are the ability for teamwork and a strong will to learn. It is the idea upon which Bild has been based. BILD. BETTER. TOGETHER.”.
Luka Žarić: “I am not an expert for tough battles, but I do think that you only need an air gun. I’m just kidding. With regard to design, you need a good portfolio and a little common sense, and everything else shall come to its place”.
Ivana Grgurović: “Persistence and readiness to give the best of yourself. That is something that I recommend to anyone with plans to apply for internship”.
Anton Nikprelaj: “I would recommend everyone to give the best from themselves. There are numerous skills that are required, but it is the most important to be open-minded”.
Maja Šavelić: “This is most certainly an opportunity for everyone to get needed knowledge from the interested area because this agency consists of professional and attentive people full of knowledge, which are selflessly transferring knowledge to everyone willing to learn.”
Vesna Božović: “A lot of work, patience and sleepless nights are needed in order to become Bild intern, but it is worth of it. Every morning I am looking forward to coming here and learn something new, and you too shall see that this can be a great experience for you. The only thing you need to do is to apply for the internship”.
We survived the first battle, but the battle with ourselves remains. Because, one of the basic principles of functioning in Bild is cooperation, knowledge sharing, mutual competition for bigger knowledge, bigger goals and better work experience under one unique Bild flag.
Jovana Đuričić: “Knowledge is like happiness, if you don’t share it, you cannot fully enjoy it, it doesn’t exist and it doesn’t grow”.
I cannot wait for the end of September to recapitulate everything that we have learned and done. I am convinced that we won’t believe what we’ve been through, what we’ve learned, how far we’ve pushed our limits and how much we’ve moved from our comfort zone. And finally one note to mentors: stay persistent with us, because we are really, really willing to learn. We are ready for the next tasks. Bring it on. :)
