My Experience as an Intern – By Molly Yarosh

Because my mom and grandmother have been working in the ad world since the dinosaurs walked, I was exposed to the world of media and advertising pretty early on. Additionally, I worked at an ad agency here in Columbia during my sophomore year of college prior to coming to True Media; so again, I was not new to the agency world. However, I was a little nervous to come to True at first because if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a numbers person. When my mom was first explaining to me what a media agency was, she told me “it’s the numbers side of entertainment and creative advertising”. For someone who admittedly runs the other way when I hear the word math or numbers, that was a little daunting. However, after having the experience as an intern at True Media, I not only realized that my initial perception of the media world was wrong, but I actually learned that media, and yes even math and numbers, could be interesting, challenging and exciting.
People would ask me all the time what my duties were at my job, and sometimes it was hard to tell them exactly what I did because I performed different tasks every day; that’s what I loved about True so much. I was able to dive into so many different parts of the media world that I had either never known about or ran the other way from because, if you didn’t know by now, this girl hates numbers. Some of the tasks that I performed include:

• Traffic – I learned this was more than just a cool agency term; traffic is the go-between from the creative agency to the vendors, making sure the files are in the correct format and they start on the correct day
• Media Buying – I worked on a retail store client inputting weekly insertion orders for radio and newspaper slots
• Social Media – this was my absolute favorite part of my internship. Being a communications major as well as an avid social media user, I was so fascinated by all of the ways people can be reached by the simple click of a button. Before I started my internship I thought I was Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn fluent. Within the first few days of working at True I realized how much I didn’t know about Social Media. I also did auditing (I know, gasp) for clients that utilize social media sites for advertising.
• Utilizing computer programs – I also learned a lot about computers as well as computer programs which I know will benefit me once I leave school and begin a career. I wasn’t new to Excel before I came to True, but I was by no means an experienced user. I was really able to grasp some key features of Excel that I wasn’t able to do before. I also learned how to use WordPress which is SUCH a vital tool; one that I didn’t even know about before I came to True Media.

Even though I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the actual work I was doing every day, I enjoyed my experience at True Media mainly because of the comfortable and extremely welcoming work environment. True Media’s culture is a major factor in its success. It was invigorating to be in a work environment that was not only comfortable for me socially, but where the people are extremely successful and good at what they do. It was so fun coming to work every day and being able to learn from people who are knowledgeable and passionate about their jobs.

It was an honor spending my semester at True Media and I am going to miss the job and everyone at the office dearly. I have learned invaluable lessons that only True could have given me and I plan on taking them with me as I continue to figure out where life is going to lead me.
If you are interested in applying for a True Media internship, please check out our website.