1. Evidence of skill development

Skill:	Motivation and Professionalism
Question:	c. Describe an example of a time during your internship that you exceeded the expectations of a customer or a colleague
Answer:
I met with my internship leader, perhaps fewer times than he expected, however this is because he allowed me to visit him as I found necessary. I recorded very detailed notes of James’ instructions during these meetings (which lasted roughly an hour each) but, as I am sure you can imagine, he was very surprised to see me at our third meeting with 8000 words of research! He had a brief skim through of the document, and verbally conveyed that he was beyond satisfied with the work he could see. During the poster presentation, one of the members of staff within Marketing was asking me about my internship, and we discovered that she already knew who I was as James had been praising me. Naturally I was happy by the outcome (and slightly embarrassed for being so OTT!).

• Evidence of skill development

Skill:	Problem Solving
Question:	Describe an example during your internship when you used a creative solution used to resolve a problem
Answer:
My internship involved identifying weaknesses and suggesting improvements within the School of Business in order to best promote our degree. One of the problems that arose during my internship, was that I discovered a lot of the university lecturers are frustrated with our registration/attendance policy. The current method of recording registration is having students sign a sheet of paper that is sent around the lecture hall during the lecture. I noticed that this is not the most efficient way of going about this as it results in a number of issues: – First and foremost, it is not the most thorough method and some students abuse this system by signing for people who are not in the lecture. – Passing the registration sheet around the hall while the students are concentrating on the lecture means that sometimes students are missed and do not realise, leading to inaccurately recorded absences, which are then later to provide evidence for. – A less talked about, but equally, if not more important issue is that each lecture uses at least 2 sheets of paper. This seems like a waste since there are more environmentally friendly AND generally efficient options.   One of the reasons that this seems to be overlooked is because paper is relatively cheap as an option. The cost is a slight disadvantage to my proposed solution, however if we are able to acquire sufficient funds, this will not be a problem.   During the research that I conducted for my marketing plan, I discovered Glasgow’s attendance policy. I proposed that we adopt the same strategy. The policy entails that each student has a key fob and have to scan themself present at the entrance of each lecture. This results in a consistent policy that guarantees that the students are now 100% accountable if they are not marked present. This also means that lecturers do not have missing records if they mistakenly forget to send the registration sheet around.  Because each student has their name recorded on their key fob, this will also eliminate, or at least significantly decrease the number of student’s being signed in by someone else. Obviously, this is also much more sustainable as it does not use any paper and the same fob register/key fobs can accommodate all lectures.   Unfortunately the outcome has not been determined yet, as my Marketing plan is over 10,000 words long and my internship leader has not had a chance to look through it yet.

Hourly Log

Date	Time	Description	Cumulative Hours
22/02/19	12:00-13:00	Initial briefing with James	1
23/02/19	13:00-16:00	Worked on Market Research (Scottish Unis)	4
24/02/19	14:00-15:30	More Market Research (Trying to get in touch with Scottish students)	5.5
1/03/19	9:00-10:00	Second briefing with James	6.5
4/03/19	19:00-22:00	More research (English universities)	9.5
5/03/19	14:00-17:30	Finish Market Research (English/International universities)	13
6/03/19	20:00-22:00	Market Segmentation	15
14/03/19	20:00-01:00	Theoretical business case looking at the possible relocation of the Business School to an existing building as an option (Risks, Resources required, Market Assessment – PEST Analysis)	20
20/03/19	18:00-21:00	Customer journey	23
22/03/19	12:30-13:30	Meeting with James	24
24/03/19	14:00-15:00	Creating the survey for market research for the promotional video	25
25/03/19	13:00- 18:00	Video script and filming plan	30

Section 2 (A) – Final Goal Achievement Review

To be completed by student prior to Final performance review and shared with line manager.

Goal	Smart Goal	Employee Review of Objective Achievement Did you achieve your objective? Explain how this objective was met	Any outstanding actions for future / handover instructions
Workplace  Goal 1	I would like to have a template Marketing plan, that is thorough enough to use for future occasions where I will be, for example, required by my lecturer to write up a Marketing plan.	Yes, as I created a Marketing plan, which I can use as a template for future coursework related to Marketing.	None
Workplace Goal 2	I would like to complete my 30 hours within the deadline. Online submission will act as evidence for this.	Yes, I have uploaded this document in time with my complete hourly log.	None
Personal Development  Goal 1	As the internship will mostly be done online, I would like to further develop my ability to target the web for resources. The internship requires that I do a lot of online research so I want to be able to find reliable and accredited sources	Yes, I referenced all the sources I used in a bibliography and cross-checked sites that seemed to have misleading information on them.	Keep it up!
Personal Development Goal 2	I would like to impress my internship leader with my professionalism and enthusiasm.	I believe that I have achieved this, as my internship leader has verbally expressed his satisfaction.	No further action required

Section 2 (B) – Student Overall Performance Review:

• What strengths do you feel you have displayed during your time on internship?

I think I have shown enthusiasm and good communication. I think I have shown that I am thorough, and listen well to instructions, without needing constant spoonfeeding (27/30 hours I spent alone).

• Do you feel you achieved the aims and objectives of your internship satisfactorily?

Yes. I shocked my internship leader with how much I had done and he conveyed how I had exceeded his expectations.

• What learning points will you take from this experience? 

I felt I really developed my organisation and time management skills as I had to balance the internship alongside my university timetable and I had to record an hourly log. I also think that I have intensely improved my research skills, as I found several unreliable sources which I had to cross-check, and the product of my internship was a lengthy and detailed marketing plan. Having spent the majority of my time adding and developing this marketing plan, my work was mainly research based, and I had to be extremely thorough with this. I now feel so much more confident with writing and referencing, and including my own opinions into my work, all of which are skills I believe will help me flourish in my degree work and future essays. I now feel more confident working alone for long periods of time as I know that I am the extroverted personality type and it was something that I would previously dread and try to avoid. Because I have now completed 30 hours of a task out of my comfort zone, I feel less reliant on company in order to work at my best.

Line Manager Overall Review:

• What strengths do you feel the student displayed?

I think that Parul clearly showed professionalism and demonstrated how she was reliable, thorough, organised, and could efficiently manage herself.

• Did the student achieve their set goals satisfactorily?

I am happy to confirm that she has achieved her set goals. Looking at the Final Goals section and her explanations of how she believes she has achieved these, I can agree with what she has said.

• Did the student achieve the aims of their overall internship satisfactorily?

I asked Parul to produce a Marketing Plan for me and she completed this task with ease. I am more than happy with the result.

• What learning points do you think the student should take from their time working with your organisation?

I think that the internship really helps students to improve their marketing techniques, which could come in handy with consolidation of modules they have already been taught in theory. I think that she now has a better understanding of what it feels like to be professionally relied on, and has more experience in networking with other students/staff.

Reflective summary:

During my internship, I gained a number of skills, as well as developing existing skills, which I will talk about in further detail. I think I have shown enthusiasm and good communication. I think I have shown that I am thorough, and listen well to instructions. My day to day experiences in the placement were fairly limited, as the internship was heavily research based. I conducted the research alone, either in my own home or the library. As I am an extrovert I found this aspect challenging as it is very hard for me to feel stimulated/motivated without some noise and evidence of other people present. To overcome this, I would constantly switch which room of the library I sat in and would recharge myself in breaks by talking to friends I bumped into. I felt I really developed my organisation and time management skills as I had to balance the internship alongside my university timetable and I had to record an hourly log. I also think that I have intensely improved my research skills, as I found several unreliable sources quoting misleading information, which I then had to cross-check. On top of this, the product of my internship was a lengthy and detailed marketing plan full of my comments and opinions on how best to market our degree, which required hours of in depth research to put together. Having spent the majority of my time adding and developing this marketing plan, my work was mainly research based, and I had to be extremely thorough with this. I now feel so much more confident with writing and referencing, and including my own opinions into my work, all of which are skills I believe will help me flourish in my degree work and future essays. I feel that I have achieved the aims of the project to my internship leader’s satisfaction, as he has told me so, and I used my initiative to add relevant text which he did not specifically ask me to research. He seemed to be very pleased and reassured at our meetings when we discussed which ideas I had been looking at already and which I could include for future hours. I am very pleased with my placement provider’s assessment and feel proud to have impressed him.

As I have been told my Portfolio Section 1 will not be marked, due to late submission, I have chosen to use the same pieces of evidence here:

Formal Version of pictured notes:

Research

• Scottish Universities (approximately 3) a typical degree takes 4 years
•  English Universities (approximately 5, students pay fees so it would be more profitable to target a majority of non-Scottish students)
•  Imperial
• International Universities
•  Europe (approximately 1)
• Neoma Business School
•  BI Business School (creditable, have an image – include references to advert on Youtube with high views)
•  USA (approximately 1)
• Harvard

• See how these universities present their Business degrees, do they have many? Is that something people are interested in in other countries? What do they offer? Anything unique? Look on their social media pages, check their fees, perhaps get a quote from a student? Do they upload their lectures? Class sizes? How strict are attendance policies etc, try to put a positive spin on every aspect e.g. Small class sizes = more attention etc.
• Read in the Financial Times for stories focused on our sector. (Does having a new business school affect application  numbers/ academic performance of a university?)
• Flow chart à describing a student’s journey from open days and Google searches to attendance. Annotate each stage with ways we can target the students and catch their attention. Start introducing ourselves as an option!

Marketing Plan

• Main objective – is to recruit students
•  I need to come up with ways to target them

digital	print	events
web socials

• Talk about China – how Dundee gave me extra opportunities to travel abroad and further consolidate and develop what I had learnt in lectures.
•  There is a new building being built from across our library – “shiny new School of Business” building.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/27/bulldoze-the-business-school

I read this article in the Guardian online, published by Martin Parker. Overall the whole article is extremely negative towards business management degrees, explaining why we should “Bulldoze the Business School.” Parker explains that “employers complain that [business] graduates lack practical skills.” He says that critics say Business Schools have “been corrupted”, “by deans following the money”, and “students expecting a qualification in return for their cash (or, more likely, their parents’ cash).” The author of the article, who himself has taught in business schools for 20 years, has come to believe that the only solution is to “shut down business schools altogether.” He even has the audacity to comment that “most business-school graduates won’t become high-level managers anyway” and that we will become conformant employees of random generic offices. In the article, Parker mentions that some business graduates have commented on their work being “disgusting”. I think this article on a whole is very negative and off-putting considering a degree in Business Management, and that the author has been extremely one-sided and lacks evidence. He comments that most graduates won’t become ‘anything special’. However, he has shown no evidence for this, and another article I have read by the Independent:

https://www.independent.co.uk/student/postgraduate/business-schools/why-business-and-management-degrees-are-popular-university-courses-a6895531.html

claims that “Business studies graduates are more likely to be employed three months after graduating than other graduates” and goes on to show a list of successful business graduates. I think that this could have an effect on my internship as the Guardian is a popular newspaper which many people read, and reading this article could influence potential students “(Or, more likely, their parents”)!  My internship consists of targeting students, across the UK and internationally, to encourage and promote the Business Management degree, and articles like this can be a serious threat to university applications.