As any sixteen year old would be, I was very nervous about my first day in the world of work. The thought of being in an office surrounded by people that have been in the business for years certainly did feel very daunting. However, after a week of getting to know the ropes I am happy to report that I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at EG.
On my first day I was very thankful for my 10 o'clock start after battling to get to grips with the buses and various methods of transport that you don't often come across in sleepy Surrey.
After a guided tour of the office, getting to know the team it became clear that this wasn't the type of clinical, hostile environment that most people of my age associate with 'work'. After sitting in on a morning planning meeting I spent my first day writing practise columns for the event section of the magazine which I was then given help on editing. Everyone was very willing to help and I received very useful feedback on the style of this sort of writing.
On the second day I experienced the multi-media side of EG, editing videos and going to the recording of a podcast. For me, this was the highlight of the week as I was allowed to tag along on a recording of a discussion with Ken Livingstone, Peter Bill, Nigel Hugill and Sir Stuart Lipton about the Olympics. My job was to take behind-the-scenes pictures to give people an idea of how it was made .
The experience showed just how diverse a job like this can be and after already meeting a group of celebrities on the first day I held high hopes for the rest of the week. Admittedly I had only heard of Ken Livingstone so luckily my role didn't involve actually talking to them.
After being allowed a day off on Wednesday for my school prom I returned (although feeling slightly worse for wear) to the office on Thursday. The day started with uploading the pictures I had taken of the podcast to EG's Flickr account where I learned how to create albums and also edit the pictures on a mac.
I then started to write a blog post that would accompany the pictures on the website. Seeing as it was my first blog, I was very thankful to recieve guidence for writing it and uploading the pictures to go with it. I then got some newspaper report writing practise by listening to recordings and attempting to write headlines whilst gathering information for a story from the recording.
Having my work on the webiste was definitely very rewarding and gave me a great sense of achievement. It was great to go to a work experience that actually gave me a taster of what it would be like to have a job at a magazine and allowed me to write.
I have been spending my last day adding corrections to the newspaper reports I did yesterday and learning the punchy structure of a real newspaper report.
The week definitely exceeded what I had heard from my friends who had already done work experience elsewhere and who had warned me to expect a week of being resident tea maker. In fact, on my last day I am yet to make one cup of tea and even have my own desk.
By Molly Goring
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