My experience as a student at CMY
For the month of June, I completed a winter placement through my university with CMY’s Communications and Marketing team. Being a young person myself from a migrant background, CMY’s values appealed to me and how they aim to empower refugee and migrant youth was incredibly important. Their vast list of programs and initiatives was impressive and ultimately motivated me to work at CMY as a student intern.
Multicultural youth today face a vast array of issues, some being related to employment and education. Oftentimes multicultural young people face racism and discrimination during the employment process, which weakens their motivation for job hunting. On top of that, many refugees who come to Australia, having partially completed tertiary education in their home country, usually have to repeat years of study in order to qualify for a certificate. CMY does a great job of addressing these issues by providing multicultural young people with the resources needed to tackle these issues, that being said these are some of the issues I am passionate about.
My placement within the Communications and Marketing team was incredibly helpful as it allowed me to learn and master how to operate new platforms and tools that would be greatly valued at organisations. I learnt how to use various editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop and Canva, as well as how to operate, post and schedule content on applications such as Hootsuite and Later. Not only were these tools extremely insightful, but they also enabled me to see how bigger organisations maintain their social media feeds. It was a great opportunity to showcase the skills I learnt throughout my course and implement them throughout my placement. In saying that, I also learned several important things from my placement at CMY to take back to my studies at university.
Coming from a toxic retail environment and having never worked in an office before, CMY made me realise how important a positive workplace culture is. Sitting behind a desk, working in the Carlton office and communicating respectfully to staff was such a breath of fresh air. It made me realise that this is the type of work environment I wish to be a part of in the future.
One thing I will take away from my placement here at CMY is to always recognise and appreciate the diligent efforts of a Communications Team. Because without them, members, supporters, donors, volunteers, stakeholders and even the wider community would not remember your organisation.
As for what the future holds, I would love a role that incorporates marketing and events. I love the atmosphere and energy generated from events and equally like the marketing communications aspect of it as well. During my placement I liked creating content and managing social media feeds, this was surprising as I never thought I’d be interested in doing so.
Thanks for having me CMY! It’s been a pleasure.
Rania Souied, Monash University Student
For placement opportunities at CMY, visit https://www.cmy.net.au/student-placements