Where should your career journey begin? What opportunities are there for young people to gain a foothold in the working world? And how do you decide at the age of 14 which educational path to take?
These were the questions we asked ourselves as we prepared for our practical workshop ahead of our annual internship week in January 2023.
First things first: We were truly impressed by the past three days — and pleasantly surprised by how engaged and focused our interns were in tackling their tasks. Preparing for workshops like this always feels a bit like opening a “surprise bag,” because we simply don’t know in advance how much prior knowledge or genuine interest the participants will bring.
Why do we welcome interns in our company?
In short: We believe that well-educated young people are the key to a better future. While that may sound like a political cliché, we truly mean it.
And because we all still vividly remember our own first work experiences — and how deeply formative they were — we invite one or two young people every year to join us and get a glimpse into our professional day-to-day life.
Our Interns
This year, we had the pleasure of welcoming Christina from Billroth High School (4th year) and Ryan from Schöffel School in Purkersdorf (also 4th year).
The Internship Program
We wanted to offer Christina and Ryan three key takeaways:
- Insight into the creative industry and first experiences in a real work environment
- Soft skills and an understanding of what matters in the workplace beyond subject knowledge
- Project-based work — with all its pros and cons
Advertising Theory
After a brief theoretical introduction, we quickly realized that the school subject “Digital Literacy” had already taught them quite a bit. So we skipped our deep dive into advertorials and paid partnerships on social media.
In general, it was genuinely fascinating to hear what young people are currently engaging with — and how they communicate.
Project Work
After some time getting to know each other and covering the theory, we explored their specific interests to determine how we could best support Christina and Ryan with relevant content. The result: they worked on an interactive touchscreen project for the Pfahlbauten Curatorship at the Natural History Museum.
The project at Lake Keutschach in Carinthia focuses on making the prehistoric pile dwellings in and around the lake accessible through digital experiences.
For the development of the interactive exhibition, we still needed illustrations — and with Christina’s talent for drawing, we translated her paper sketches onto the touchscreen during a creative workshop.
On the second day, we introduced them to web development. The brief dive into the technical world of PHP, Drupal, and CSS wasn’t quite as exciting for them as other parts, but it was still important to us to provide some basic understanding.
One key takeaway: behind every game or website lies a complex and time-consuming process. Perhaps next time Christina and Ryan play FIFA or Fortnite, they’ll have a bit more appreciation for what’s going on behind the scenes.
Ryan, on the other hand, was drawn to our camera equipment and editing suite. So we put him in charge of filming a short documentary about the internship. On the third day, Christina assisted with the camera work.
To our surprise, the two quickly grasped the camera settings and post-production basics and independently produced a short internship film within just a few hours.
Thanks again for spending time with us – it was a pleasure having you! ❤
