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STUDENT BLOG: Emma Fishburn's Internship from Bunbury to the USA

Monday, 10 August 2020

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As part of their course, our students undertake work integrated learning placements. One student based in the South West, Emma Fishburn was recently given the opportunity to undertake hers virtually with a company in the USA. The Bachelor of Commerce student writes about her experience.

February 2020 was an extremely exciting month! My WIL journey was about to commence, and I was lucky enough to score a placement with Californian based company Intellivision Entertainment with the help of Nathalie Collins, ECU’s Director, International. Intellivision are launching a new computer game console called the Amico, loosely based on the Intellivision console that was so popular in the 80’s. With ultra-modern technology and a message of “bringing people together again” this console is ground-breaking entertainment and I was about to have a small part to play in the marketing of its launch!

WIL is all about gaining real world experience and using the knowledge and skills we have learnt at university. So, this opportunity was too good to miss. Not only was I going to be working remotely for part of the semester and using those online skills that I have gained as a partly online student but I was then going to fly to L.A. to meet my amazing supervisor - Communications & Events Director Emily Rosenthal aswell as Vice President Global Marketing Cara Acker and the rest of the Intellivision team to develop some hands-on marketing skills during the Amico launch at E3.

Enter March 2020 and the onset of COVID-19 – an extremely disappointing month! In the space of a few weeks, E3 and my trip had been cancelled. But where did that leave my WIL placement? It actually took on a new direction where I learnt more than I thought possible!

Although E3 was cancelled and there was no main event to prepare for anymore, Intellivision quickly changed the direction of their marketing campaigns and took on a more digital approach. Emphasis was placed on YouTube interviews, MailChimp mail outs and social media posts, all of which I had the opportunity to learn and be involved in. New products were also being developed for which I was able to conduct some desktop market research and create reports about, all while learning the theory behind why we were doing this in my other marketing units.

So, my trip of a lifetime turned into a series of Zoom meetings and emails, but I couldn’t be happier (well… unless I was actually able to go to L.A.). Emily was such a wonderful supervisor and teacher and the tasks that I performed have definitely given me the confidence to continue on that road. A big thank you to Judy Lundy and the WIL team who were so supportive over this challenging semester. Nathalie Collins for helping to secure this opportunity for me and of course, Emily and Cara who gave me such interesting and varied work to do. It may not have been the experience that I had planned for but, with the way the world is going with remote working and learning, it was an experience that will pay off in spades!

Written by: Emma Fishburn
FBL3501 student with Intellivision Entertainment's Emily Rosenthal

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