An Intern’s Fond Farewell

Today is our amazing intern’s last day. Below are her thoughts on the experience. If you are interested in interning in the publicity department at OUP shoot me an email at [email protected]. Ashley, you have no idea how much you will be missed!

By Ashley Bray

My time at Oxford University Press has come to an end, and just when I was getting started! I may have only been at Oxford for a few short months, but I am walking away with a lot more knowledge than I walked in with.

To be honest, I happened upon this internship accidentally. I wasn’t planning on interning this semester, but a friend of mine recommended that I apply so I decided to give it a shot. My goal has always been to land an internship in book publishing, and since all of my past forays have been into magazines and newsletters, I couldn’t let this opportunity slide by. Obviously, things worked out in my favor!

My official title has been “Blog Intern,” but that is misleading because I’ve gotten the chance to do a little bit of everything while I’ve been here. What I’ve liked most about this internship is that I’ve done something different each day. There is always a new blog post to write or promote, a galley letter to write, or a press release to put together. I even learned about the editorial side of book publishing at a lunch I scheduled with an editor.

What was my favorite thing to do while at this internship? Why, update Publicity Assistant, of course (PA for short, we’re on pretty close terms, you all know how it is)! For those of you who can’t sense the sarcasm coming off that sentence in waves, let me clue you in— I’m joking. All jokes side, however, I am grateful for what I learned to do with Publicity Assistant; it’s an important program to know how to use and one more thing I can take away from this internship. Becca may think I’m lying considering she lived in daily fear that I would quit each time she gave me something to enter into PA, but really, I didn’t mind it.

So what was really my favorite thing about this internship? Getting the chance to work with a variety of books (and there’s not the least bit of sarcasm in that sentence!). I had the chance to read and write about books all day— it was almost too good to be true! From In Search of Jefferson’s Moose to From Colony to Superpower to The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (a personal favorite), I’ve gotten the chance to work with books in almost every category. For an avid reader and writer, there’s really nothing better.

One of the most valuable things I took away from this internship is a much clearer idea about the blogosphere. Bloggers were quite foreign to me when I first started, and I was a bit overwhelmed at first by this new world of posts, Technorati, and Blogrolls. This is embarrassing for a college student— someone who should be on the forefront of this kind of stuff— to admit. I am forever grateful to Becca for teaching me everything I needed to know about the world of blogs; it’s knowledge that I know I’ll be able to apply no matter where I go.

I’m sad to leave, but I’m thankful that I decided to intern at Oxford. I’ve learned so much, met a lot of great people, and had fun along the way. Thank you, Becca, for making this experience so worthwhile! And thank you to everyone at Oxford who helped me to feel welcome and get involved while I was here.