Ben Kvisler, London Internship—Advertising & Marketing Track

Interned in Advertising and Sales at Educate Direct, Spring 2014

Internship: I worked at Educate Direct (https://www.educate-direct.com/), a small advertising sales firm that helps universities and commercial organizations source talent. I was assigned a variety of work to support the sales team. The majority of the work involved making creative content for email campaigns and adverts. I also generated some email campaigns and made occasional sales calls. The biggest project I took part in was to design a microsite for a client, University of Derby. I designed the basic page layouts and made the creative content to go behind it.

I Learned: I used Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to make and edit creative work. The latter two programs I got to learn about while on the job. I could have learned how to use these programs in a classroom, but learning how to use them and creating real work for clients was a lot more meaningful.

For the study abroad experience in general, I learned that taking advantage of everyday and weekend is very important. While 4 months may seem like a good amount of time, it’s not all that long. So taking advantage of the free time you have is pretty important. I used the time to travel and learn more about my hobbies. Coming into my senior year, I’ll make sure that I spend it wisely and do the things that I’ve always wanted to do instead of having lazy weekends and evenings.

What Surprised Me: I was surprised by how close every other European country is to London. Many of the big cities are a 1-2.5 hour flight away. And if I booked early enough prices were quite affordable. This allowed me to travel to many countries while not grossly going over budget.

Hardest Part: The hardest part of the experience was trying to do everything in such a short amount of time. I really wanted to travel a lot and go to lots of the iconic London and European sites. It’s absolutely doable, but you have to plan early and get your friends on board if you’d like them to go. Make sure that your on top of your homework too, that always makes it easier.

Best Part: The best part was getting to travel to different European countries and getting an authentic take on the US perspective of foreign culture and food. This was my first time aboard, so everything was pretty new. As for London, the best part was being immersed in a city that always has something interesting to do. Most every day and night there’s some kind of event or new place to go.

My Tips:

• Use the London buses! They’re a great way to get around the city while getting to see all the major landmarks.
• Take advantage of all the free things to do, like the museums and events.
• Plan travel early. The earlier you can plan, the cheaper travel and lodging will be. RyanAir and EasyJet are good inexpensive flight operators.
• Get a Waitrose card and Sainsbury card. They give you discounts at these grocery stores.
• Get Giffgaff for a SIM card. It worked great for me in London and other countries, and it was cheap.