This summer, I took on additional responsibilities at my workplace in order to satisfy the

requirements for an internship in editing. Speaking personally, ENC 4942 has always loomed
ahead like a mile marker on my course map. Of course, with it being 4000-level, it would likely
mean that I would take it close to graduation. Since my first college course was taken back in
2016, it would mean that I was near to the fulfillment of a goal that has taken a long time for me
to achieve. To be candid, the internship feels like one of the most “professional” things I have
done to this point; the bulk of my previous work has been at the bottom of the rung of the ladder
in line kitchens and landscape crews. I’m reminded of the bulletin board material at my
community college which had smiling pictures of men in ties and women in blazers promising
upward mobility. The completion of my internship in proper scope is only a small step forward,
but one I do recognize and appreciate.
In February of this year, I took on a job as a tutor at SolutionSkills, a company that seeks
to help high school students succeed on tests like the SAT and ACT and get accepted into
college. For the internship, my additional responsibilities would be completely different. One of
these responsibilities would be to compose business narratives, which was maybe the most
“creative” part of the internship. One thing that my boss Mr. Vickers likes to do for any former,
current, or potential clients, as well as other entities such as high school administrators, is send
out regular newsletters which would contain promotions for the business’ upcoming prep class
options, but also what he called “stories”: pieces of text that discussed various topics relating the
company’s focus — test prep and college admittance.
Typically, like a university assignment, I would be presented with a topic to research,
such as living-learning communities or university honors programs. I would then look for
information, take notes on all of the information that I felt was relevant, read over it all and
compose a “story” from it, which I came to understand as simply presenting the information in a
digestible way. These documents would then later take form as a sort of clipboard; the words on
it could be lifted, paraphrased, or referenced, or even just an additional research tool for the
future person in my same position. Though the topics and purpose of the “stories” may have been
a bit dry at times, in time, I did find myself actually enjoying the process. It was satisfying to end
up with a polished finished product after a few hours of diligent work that started with nothing.
One thing that was different from my course experience was that I generally did not have a rubric
or example to guide me on these assignments; how they went was determined only by me, which
was unexpected and uncomfortable, but it gave me opportunities to make decisions as a writer
and boost my confidence when they were well-received. My appreciation for, and willingness to
do, technical writing in my profession has absolutely been boosted by this experience.
Another responsibility of mine was to edit mass communication emails, which would
either be sent out on Robly or a standard business Outlook. The process here was relatively
similar to the compositions, yet differing in that I would be working with texts already published
by our company or with notes written by Mr. Vickers. When working with the mass emails, half
of that work was editing those texts down to what was needed at the moment, emphasizing the
most important details with deliberate bolds and italics and other font choices.
The other half of the mass email work was in the formatting, and this was particularly
true for the Robly emails. Each mass communication was meant to present the information in a
mostly chronological order (though with relative importance of the information always in mind).

 Robly itself has a drag and drop document template, and I found myself during the editing
process (especially early on) playing a lot with order and style. Towards the end of the
internship, I became a lot more time-efficient in this area and I felt like I got a good sense of
what sorts of things Mr. Vickers likes to see in his designs and what choices to avoid. For
instance, the “It’s Almost August” newsletter took much less time for me to complete than the
previous newsletter just like it. A distinct difference between the newsletters and mass emails is
the presence of more images in the former, and an aesthetic goal of the newsletters was to have a
balance between text and image with even distribution as a plus. Thanks to many of my classes
at FSU, I had come to understand how things other than written words, and where they are, can
communicate messages. I also learned about the importance of form in a published work. By
piecing together the newsletters, I found that a photo before the content as an introduction works
better for them than afterwards as a conclusion. On these newsletters, a photo seemed to
communicate a new and important topic, and discovering that language of the form was
personally rewarding.
In addition to the visual formatting of newsletters, I also got the chance to work with
infographics on Canva. Typically, these would be for email letter heads, like the “summer
editions,” or charts like the ACT and SAT class lists. It’s encouraging for me to look back at the
beginning of this internship, as I would never have said that I had any proficiency or pleasure in
digital design at the time. But now, I can say that I take some pleasure in it, and would be willing
to assume similar responsibilities in employment after graduation.
Something else that I appreciate more in hindsight is that the visual work exposed me to
how I handle certain situations. Design work on sites like Canva and Robly generally is new to
me, so frequently I would find myself not certain which step I should take next on projects.
There were some times I’d get frustrated, but eventually I’d find a way to work through the
problem. In the moment, experiences like that were not pleasant, but looking back I can
acknowledge that I did learn something new and got some practice dealing with stress in a
professional setting. I’m certain I will find such lessons very valuable in the future.