Personal Result
Through the internship program in PT. Cardig International, the intern got the opportunity to be a new member of the publication team of Group Newsletter, Cardig News. As Group Newsletter is used to communicate important ideas to employees to make them feel that they are insiders under Cardig International Group, part of the team, and on the progress of what is happening within the group and its industry; some subjects learned in classes in the previous semesters could be well applied such as Mass Media, News Reporting and Report Writing, Business English and Photography which will be learned further still in the next coming semester.
Internship is also as a bridge between education and business and surely the theory got in classes is absolutely different from what is practiced on the field. Through working on Cardig News, the intern could use some of the theories as applied science since the theoretical matters are closely necessary for every single thing required. The intern could get new knowledge about writing in a corporate printed media of a company.
Working with the publication team of Cardig News gave the intern opportunity to improve and develop both personal and professional capabilities as Cardig News also required a good sense of writing and delivering messages through pictures and articles. That is what is called knowledge transfer and from Cardig News, the intern learned deeper how to solve certain problems, to critically think of some analytical problems as well as how to work in a team when working on the company’s internal printed media.
In the first publication the intern was involved in, Cardig News 2, the Chief of Publication took an opportunity to thank the intern through an article for the dedication, commitment and integrity for the appearance improvement and the page increase.
While, in the second publication the intern was involved in, Cardig News 3, the intern was given responsibility to handle Cardig News himself due to corporate action; from the final correction of every single page to the approval of the final draft to go to the printing but the intern was able to pass it through.
Evaluation
Working on Cardig News for two editions offered opportunities to the intern to achieve the learning objectives and the scopes of work. As some subjects learned in classes are applicable for a project like Cardig News, certainly, the intern could identify which part of the knowledge could be directly used and the constraints the intern should be aware of. With intensive assistance from the on-site supervisor, the intern then could successfully achieve the objectives of publishing Group Newsletter, Cardig News.
The intern also had opportunities to develop his key competent and skills by working with the publication team of Cardig News. From the interviews conducted, the intern could simply apply the basic knowledge of Public Relations of how to interview people to get information in proper manners. Not only that, from the experiences gained of making internal magazines in Mass Media and News Reporting and Report Writing classes, the intern could make suitable compositions of article written in Cardig News and how to select good pictures for some particular articles so the articles would look proportional with the lay out designs.
Through Cardig News also, the intern accomplished many things unexpectedly such as the increase of the pages. Originally, Cardig News consisted of only five pages later the intern helped the publication team to add three more pages to give space to other topics that might be necessary for the readers to know such as Subsidiaries Profile, Knowledge Sharing and Business Partner Profile.
Furthermore, working with the publication team of Cardig News, the intern had opportunities to maintain personal and professional developments. Personal development such as how the intern looks at particular problems from personal point of views and later is written for articles in Cardig News. Professional development such as how the intern could professionally work with an outsourcing design agency in creating the setting and the layout of Cardig News in the making process.
Cardig News certainly gives experiences and advantages to the intern for the future use on how to make a good corporate newsletter of a company and knowledge of whom to approach to get the sources of the news or at least the right person to interview to find the right information for the newsletter as well as how to take pictures for certain articles, besides learning how to design the layout of the newsletter with right composition of articles and pictures.
Points Learned
From the internship program in PT Cardig International especially when working with the publication team of Cardig News, the intern learned many things such as the quality of work performance, working relationship with others, oral and written communication skills, maturity, leadership characteristics, initiative, motivation, willingness to accept responsibilities and maintaining overall performance.
First point is the quality of work performance. Getting involved in two editions of Cardig News, the intern has shown a consistent improving work performance in composing the articles, selecting the pictures and setting the designs and layouts as the intern contributed more than 65 percent of his efforts for Cardig News.
Working relationship with others is second point to ponder as the intern should work well with the publication team in composing the articles, taking the pictures on place and sometimes in Soekarno-Hatta international airport, getting involved in reportage with other members of the team as well as working with the people of the outsourcing design agency when working on the drafts of Cardig News.
Another point learned is oral and written communication skills. Being a new member of Cardig News publication team requires good oral communication skills when interviewing the sources to collect the information and written communication skills are required to put the interview results into articles writing.
Other important points to learn are maturity and leadership characteristics. During the involvement in Cardig News, the intern learned a lot about maturity which is required to work professionally with the team and communicate with the information sources. While leadership was needed when personally working with the people from the outsourcing design agency; how to direct them to create certain layout design appearance based on corporate taste and need.
Initiative and motivation are other points to learn when making Cardig News. The intern initiated to write more articles to reserve for the next edition and to find out which news are good to written for the articles. Beside that, the intern motivated himself to finish the articles correction from the advisory team of Cardig News.
When the on-site supervisor was on leave, the intern was given responsibilities to finalize and check the Cardig News 3rd edition correction as well as to approve it to go to the printing and also how to maintain better appearance of Cardig News from edition to edition.
Mohammad Reiza 