Darwin High School’s Carissa Liddle’s true passion is photography, but spending her week long work experience in Charles Darwin University’s Corporate Communications department offered her a host of new learning opportunities.
‘Providing work experience is a great opportunity for students to sample what a busy working environment is really like, it provides an insight on the varied relationships, time guidelines and strategies developed within the buzz of marketing,’ said Marie-Claire Cull, Corporate Communications marketing manager. ‘There’s a lot of planning and concentrated efforts to marketing success, it is not simply a matter of getting that advert in the paper, and Carissa sampled that “buzz”’.
During her time here, Carissa performed a variety of workplace duties including computer operations, complex internet research, sports personality profiling, telephone customer service, professional email writing, event collateral productions, database development from her internet findings and website analysis.
‘She was quite shy at first,’ Ms Cull said. ‘But it wasn’t long before she was openly sharing her opinion with the team.’ Ms Cull said the Corporate Communications team valued Carissa’s honest feedback on the current University marketing direction and communication tools being developed to reach students in Carissa’s age group.
‘Working at CDU has been a fantastic experience for me,” Carissa said, ‘and I found it to be very useful giving me an excellent insight into the work environment. I would like to thank the marketing manager, Marie-Claire Cull and the whole Corporate Communications team for their friendship and willingness to support my learning.’
Ms Cull said, ‘We enjoyed the support provided by Carissa and I would encourage other managers to take on a work experience student for the invaluable and enjoyable experience for both parties.’
For enquiries regarding work experience opportunities please contact Trisha Kohlweg, Schoolslink, on 8946 6387 or email: trisha.kohlweg@cdu.edu.au.