July 26, 2022, by Rebekah

My placement at Cerebral Palsy Sport

by Xixi Zhao Nottingham University Business School PGR student 

When I became a new postgraduate student, I received an email about applying for a Nottingham Advantage Award. I am so curious about what is that at the beginning? Therefore I clicked the website and read the relevant information. After that I decided to choose the Nottingham Advantage Award Placement module. During my first interview, I found out that my placement partner supervisor, who is really a very patient, warm and attentive person. She has really given me a lot of confidence at the beginning. Luckily, I was successful in my interview for an internship with Cerebral Palsy Sport, a non-profit organization, which supports everyone with cerebral palsy to have the opportunities, capability and motivation to participate in a wide range of physical activities and which suit a variety of interests. I did not have any work experience in non-profit organization, that is the reason why I want to choose this organization. My role is marketing and communication intern, and I supported the Marketing and Communications department in the lead up to the launch of the new CP Sport strategy and CP Awareness month in March 2022 and developed new campaigns.

There are some valuable skills that I learned from that placement. The first skill is Digital Capabilities, for example, I have gone from a novice user of Canva to a proficient user of this software. From the beginning, my mentor encouraged me, gave me a lot of confidence and introduced me to its features very carefully, and kept giving me practical examples of what I could do with Canva, and now I have mastered how to use Canva to create videos, posters, banners, logos and more. Also, helping it raise more traffic during the CP sports awareness month. It has enriched my knowledge of digital media platforms for news and has also given me an understanding of fundraising platforms.

The second skill I have acquired is reflection. At the beginning of my internship, my supervisor made a schedule of what I was supposed to do at each time slot and a time to meet and discuss it. This helped me to develop a good habit of planning and reflecting regularly. During my internship, every Monday I had a catch-up meeting with my supervisor to discuss and review what I had done in the previous week. This helped me develop the ability to regularly reflect on my work progress. When I did well, she would encourage me and give me lots of confidence and enthusiasm to do my job. If I didn’t do well, she would point it out to me and reassure me that I would do better next time. This has enabled me to make continuous progress in this placement because every time I complete a task in my work, I reflect on what I did better and what I could still improve. Next time I come across a similar task how I can reduce my mistakes and how I can make the task be completed more efficiently.

During this internship, by helping to design and support a number of campaigns and events I also gained a more realistic and deeper experience of digital marketing campaigns in practice. Therefore, I am grateful for this experience, as an international student I feel that it was a very valuable and rewarding experience that not only gave me relevant knowledge and skills, but also made me more confident in my future work.

My advice is to always have confidence in yourself and to be brave. Be prepared before the interview in terms of knowing the company and the position！

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