My Summer Internship Experience

I'm thinking that I may have to do more responses than posts this semester, since I did my internship over the summer and it is over with now, but I would like to try and post whenever possible. So here goes...

I completed my internship at the Cedar Springs Public Schools District Office. My main task was to create the district's 2008-2009 annual report. This was a much bigger project than I even expected, since while they had always had an annual report (by legal obligation) they had never had the staff, time, or budget to make a comprehensive and professional one. My supervisor had an annual report from another school that he admired, but aside from that I was starting from scratch.

I spent almost every Monday and Tuesday at the district office in the computer lab (my makeshift office) or around campus meeting with different administrators. Creating the annual report consisted of researching the legal information that was obligated to be presented, a ton of layout work in InDesign, some work in Excel and Photoshop, and many hours calling, emailing, visiting, and tracking down the information that I needed, followed by the editing and/or writing of that information. I was in contact with around 15 different people to obtain the material I needed. It was interesting and a bit challenging to manage all of this especially considering it was summer on a school campus.

Nearing the end of my internship I made sure that all of my project files were well organized and copies given to the right people. I also made sure to do several trial prints of the document to make sure I was leaving them with a product that looked good in print as well as on screen. Lastly, I got several quotes on pricing so they had an idea of the price range when they went to print, which I believe will happen some time this October.