My Internship at Heat Magazine

Evening to my lovely readers!

I've been so busy the past couple of months that I never got chance to tell you about what I did in November...that's right I bagged my self a short internship at Heat Mag! Having worked at Closer earlier in the year, I must say I did find my experience this time round A LOT less daunting. The thing is Closer and Heat are literally next door to one another, on the same floor and in the same building. Since I was pretty used to the building and people there...I wasn't as nervous. In fact, I was more excited than anything.

It was a lot of fun! As most of you probably know - I absolutely love the buzz of visiting big cities and what better city to visit than London?!

So I should probably start telling you what I actually got up to whilst I was 'daaan saaaf' rather than babbling, here it goes...

On my first day , it involved getting up at 5:30am and leaving the house by 6:20am (a traumatic experience for me to say the least). Next thing was to avoid dosing off at the train station and make it to Kings Cross in one piece - again a troublesome experience. Once I got to Kings Cross I had to take the tube to Covent Gardens and then simply take a short walk to Heat Towers.

Once I arrived in reception, I just had to wait for the editorial assistant to come and fetch me - she shortly appeared and called out my name. I was pleasantly surprised when 3 other interns' names were called also. Maria (the editorial assistant) gave us a brief tour of the old building and then led us to our desk. We all got our own desks which was pretty good!

This time round I chose to do Editorial rather than Fashion - and in all honesty, I actually enjoyed the Editorial side more as it involved more writing rather than being locked in the Fashion Cupboard. I don't mind the Fashion Cupboard but writing is definitely where my true passion lies.

Throughout the week I...

• Was introduced to various members of staff 
• I wrote a whole lotta web content
• Briefly bumped into Holly from Geordie Shore
• Did an online Twitter chat with some X Factor Contestants
• Went to visit the girls on the Closer Fashion Desk and helped them out with some fashion samples
• Put together some goody bags and sent out subscription issues to the lovely ladies at Mother & Baby Mag
• Got given some lovely books on the last day as a thank you for my efforts

AND I got the chance to sit in the Coco-Cola truck! 

All in all it was an amazzzing experience - Heat yet again confirmed to me that I do want to work in the magazine/fashion/publishing industry when I'm a little bit older. 

Have you interned at any magazines or PR companies recently? If so, comment below -  I would love to hear all about it :) 

GoThinkBig celebrate their 1st Birthday!!

This week GoThinkBig had their 1st birthday! If you're sitting here reading this wondering what on earth 'GoThinkBig' is - is it a person? a product? Well for all of you who aren't aware - GoThinkBig is an organisation that focuses on helping young ambitious people get their foot in the door in the media industry and several other industries in fact.

GoThinkBig has an opportunities website where you can apply for work experience, internships, apprenticeships and entry level positions. If you're anything like me, when I stumbled upon this website I was beyond excited. I did my first fashion internship at Bliss Magazine back in early 2012 which I gained off of my own back. I sent them my CV, registered my interest, wrote a cover letter and then wrote a further letter explaining why I think I'd be pefect to be a Blisslet & luckily I nailed the deal. It wasn't easy to obtain the work experience but well worth it in the end. The point I'm making is - for me to land that work experience I emailed every magazine possible begging for an internship but didn't hear back from the majority of them. Who wants a girl who has no experience in the industry?

GoThinkBig take out all of this hassle for you and actually advertise real opportunities which, if you apply for - whether you're successful or not in gaining the opportunity you are still notified rather than sitting and waiting. Waiting upon an email telling you that Vogue wants to employ you and thinks you're fantastic (a girl can dream eh!).

Anyway, the whole point of me writing this post is because I'd like to give a big thank you to GoThinkBig for all that they've done for me this year, it's changed everything for me!! Back in January this year I found GTB and thought hey ho lets give it ago and think I applied for every opportunity going. A month later I had completely forgot about applying for all these applications when I received a phone call from the Style Assistant at Closer magazine (midway through drying my hair and rushing around getting ready for sixth form) asking if I'd like to do a fashion internship next month. Me being the stupidly excited/panicky person I am just literally didn't know what to say! I was just astounded that a big magazine would take any interest in me! Anyways, I accepted and so a couple of weeks later, off I went to Shaftesbury Avenue...

However the luck didn't stop there! On my second day of interning at Closer I was in the lift and the other girl in the lift began talking to me and stated she was really impressed with me - turns out she was the editorial assistant at Heat magazine! Maria gave me her contact details and told me I'm more than welcome to do some work experience at Heat whenever I like. So, once I got home from London I emailed her and  sorted it. In a week I'll be off to Covent Gardens for a week to Heat Towers but this time in the editorial department. Hooray! GoThinkBig is definitely worth giving a try, it does prove that one opportunity can lead to another. Thank you so much GTB :)

Check out the video below to see even further details on how GoThinkBig can help you!
Follow them on Twitter: @GoThinkBig
Or if you think you're ready to get your foot in the door, check out their website for opportunities: www.gothinkbig.co.uk