Learnings of a MAIP Intern
Girl, You'll Be Fine
When I accepted my position as a MAIP 2021 Fellow in what was probably one of the most nerve-wrecking days of my life, there were three things rushing through my mind.

- What the hell is comms planning?
- I literally don’t know what I’m doing.
- Did they seriously have to put me in media?

Eloquent? Not quite.
Truthful? Yes. (Sorry media peeps).
As someone who’s always pictured herself as a creative, it was hard to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to be working in it.
Though I’ve had experience in lots of different roles at an agency, copywriting has always been my thing. My jam. My bread and butter.
You get the point.
So when a comms planning offer came in on selection day, it threw me for a loop. Sure, comms planning was my second choice but it was something I chose on a whim. Someone had told me I would be good at comms planning, but I literally didn’t even know what the job entailed.
All I knew was that MAIP was something I wanted to be a part of. Even though the offer wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, I figured I could learn a thing or two and surprise myself this summer. If anything, I could learn that I didn’t like comms planning and never touch it again—something just as valuable.
Fast forward several months and here I am—surrounded by hard working fellows, supportive mentors, and lots of late nights committing to the grind. I won’t lie, it’s been really hard getting to this point.
Imposter syndrome is a beast I have yet to tame and more often than not, I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going. But with the help of some incredibly talented and passionate people I’m slowly but surely learning how to grow out of that head space. Here’s a couple of things I’ve taken away this summer that’s helped me grow as both a professional and just a human being.
1. Media isn't half bad.
I feel like I’m backstabbing the copywriter in me for saying this, but comms planning is a lot more fun than I expected.
I can’t believe the day has come that I, a person who’s always called media boring and lame, am finally admitting it’s not as bad as I’ve chalked it up to be.
To be fair, I've only gotten to experience the fun parts of the job thanks to the amazing people I work with, but the fact that I don't dread going to work is something I'm extremely grateful for.
I’m glad that I was willing to put myself out there and experience something new, even if I didn’t originally want to do it.
2. Stop being afraid of networking.
I can't say I'm over my fear of cold-messaging people on LinkedIn, but someone recently helped me put networking into a far less intimidating perspective: It’s pretty flattering for someone to reach out and ask you ~specifically~ for help. It’s like a main character moment. Not to mention the fact that people love to talk about themselves. Especially people in advertising. 
Obviously this isn't how everyone feels, but I'm choosing to approach networking with this mindset to encourage myself to reach out to those I admire more often. 
3. You can always change your mind.
I don’t know how I got stuck in this mindset—maybe it’s because I’m still just starting out—but I have this internal dread that once I make a decision to do something and start working somewhere, I’ll be stuck in that choice forever.
And that’s just simply not the case. You can always change your mind. People jump careers all the time. Sometimes you want to try something new. There’s so much time to decide what you want to do and to pursue different things (even though it feels like there’s never enough time).

So this extremely long blog post is to say: You’ll be fine. “You” as in me. Take a deep breath. Be proud of your accomplishments. Don’t be afraid  of messing up. If MAIP has taught me anything, it’s that I’m going to be just fine.
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