A race against time

“We grew comfortable with change, we grew comfortable with mistakes, and most importantly, we grew comfortable with rising above our failures. This was the essence of our internship: to stretch ourselves beyond what we think we can do.”

Tick. Tock.

The moment the internship started, I realised the most valuable asset I had and needed is time, but time marches on and waits for no one. There was so much to learn, so much to explore and so many opportunities to grow. It was immensely enjoyable, to pick up new skills and discover marketing tools and technology. It was extremely meaningful, for Marc to always wrestle the ideas we Winter interns came up with, challenging us to try harder and explore further. It was undoubtedly difficult to come up with a solution to solve a marketing problem that was ungoogleable. It was definitely the best way I could have spent my Winter 2020.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Time continually passed by mercilessly as we found ourselves in the valley during our journey. It was the point where we could not quite reconcile theory and data and we found ourselves throwing away idea after idea. We cycled through many variations of our ideas – what we had during week 1 of my internship was completely gone by week 2. And this was common. We grew comfortable with change, we grew comfortable with mistakes, and most importantly, we grew comfortable with rising above our failures. This was the essence of our internship: to stretch ourselves beyond what we think we can do, with our good friend Mr Failure guiding us along the way.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Somewhere, somehow, we jumped. I cannot tell you what this jump feels like, and I cannot tell you how to jump either. It just happened and you might not even realise it. But we jumped. The last week of our internship was the hardest race against time. We implemented all our ideas over the last weekend. Truly I tell you, deadlines make miracles. We find ourselves wishing for more time – we were still aggregating our results and data 30 minutes before our final presentation! But this is the reality: to always face the constraint of time and make the best out of it. This internship fleshes out this reality in every way possible and pushes you to the extreme.

Looking back.

I was truly scrambling for time, trying to make the best out of the limited daylight hours we had. But I appreciated every second of it, both the exhilarating moments when there were a breakthrough and the tough moments when we realised we were going nowhere. I appreciate every single time DP’s staff were so willing to teach and help us in our journey, guiding us on how to use martech and even helping us set up the Ad campaigns. I appreciate the opportunity and freedom this internship offers to grow and explore.

Dear Future Interns, come with an open heart to learn and grow, come with an open mind to look at your challenge from different perspectives. Most importantly, treasure the people around you.