What company were you an intern at and how did you find out about it?
I was an intern at Cogapp. I heard about the internship there through the Wired Sussex website.
What were the reasons you went for an internship?
Before starting the internship I'd been exploring and studying digital media for some time. The problem for me was that there are so many ways of using computers creatively, and to an extent it seemed like choosing one discipline would mean excluding all the others. I wanted to gain professional experience, but my choices were to either promise a year of my time to a single company, or to attempt working as a freelancer. The opportunity at Cogapp provided the perfect middle ground, giving me invaluable experiences all over the digital spectrum. I'm now much clearer about what I'd like to pursue and how I'm going to go about doing it.
What were your duties and what experience did you take away with you?
The best thing about my placement was that it allowed me to engage with the production process from start to finish. This consisted of retouching images, editing audio and videos, applying post-production AV effects, making 3D animations, programming interactives and websites, preparing written documents and discussing ideas with clients. I was working on all this with very experienced people, who always took the time to make sure I was engaged with something interesting.
What did the internship lead on to afterwards?
I'm happy to say that I'm still at Cogapp, working as a multimedia assistant.
Would you recommend an internship to others?
I would very highly recommend this to others. There's a temptation with digital media to think that it can all be learnt in your bedroom at home. A lot of it can, but there's no substitute for surrounding yourself with like-minded people in a collaboratively creative environment. What I learned in three months would have taken me years elsewhere.
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