My Career Ready Internship at Museums Galleries Scotland
Abigail Strachan talks about her four-week Career Ready internship with Museums Galleries Scotland.
About
When I arrived at the Castle Street office on my first day everyone was so welcoming and the work setting felt very relaxed. I have had two jobs in hospitality so working in an office environment was very different. I love the flexibility of hybrid working at Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS), the option of working from home or in the office is very good as you can arrange it to work with your personal life.
During my internship with MGS I used excel spreadsheets to help with the website audit. MGS are launching a new website next year and I was helping to record some of the information on the current website. Helping with the audit allowed me to develop my skills and knowledge of excel and helped me to learn more about MGS and the work they do. I also learnt how to use Buffer, a social media scheduling tool, to schedule Twitter posts about upcoming events for people working in the sector.
I also worked on captioning videos using Otter ai, a transcript software. MGS use this software to make recorded events more accessible by providing captions. I looked through the auto generated captions and changed anything that was wrong, ensuring they were accurate.
During my third week at MGS I helped the Skills team to edit PowerPoint presentations, which will be used as learning materials for Modern Apprentices. I helped to make the slides more unique and eye-catching by using colourful imagery and designs. Throughout my internship I met so many people from various departments and learnt about the work that they do within the museums sector. I helped in different departments with a variety of tasks and I took part in team meetings, hearing about their work and tasks for the week ahead. It was interesting to meet people and learn more about what they do within the organisation. It was also interesting to learn about the different types of software and applications an organisation such as MGS uses.
In my final week I had a meeting about interview skills with Markus from the Skills team. Markus helped me understand what job interviewers are looking for and helped me develop my answers and also my CV.
"I feel this internship has better prepared me for what to expect, how to structure my day and the purpose of setting aims and goals"
Abigail Strachan, Career Ready Intern
When I leave school I would like to become a football manager. I feel I can take some skills from this internship into that career, such as timekeeping, meeting deadlines, communication and organisational skills. Before becoming a manager I would like to start as a kids coach before moving on to coaching teenagers and adults, using the knowledge and skills I have developed along the way.
After I finish School next year I’ll be going to College to study Sports Development. The course will be a hybrid working set up similar to MGS, I feel this internship has better prepared me for what to expect, how to structure my day and the purpose of setting aims and goals. I would recommend a Career Ready internship to anyone looking for real life work experience to better prepare you for the world of work.
Find out more about Career Ready and hosting an intern at your organisation.