Direct. Design. Collaborate. Create: My (Unexpected) Marketing Internship.
My expectations of working in a startup in the capital city of Indonesia were wrong from the start. Before I joined Ruangguru in Jakarta as a content marketing intern, I was a part-time employee at an education agency in Seattle, Washington. I had to sit behind a desk 8 hours a day. I was a part-time student at Shoreline Community College then, just figuring out what to do over the summer. Ultimately, Ruangguru was really the opposite of what I expected, the benchmark of which was my stint in Seattle. You just have to read through to know why.
The first day at Ruangguru, I walked into one big co-working place and I could see long tables, crowded with laptops, surrounded by people who seemed like they are around my age. Turns out, I was right at first sight. The average age of the employees is around their twenties. A lot of them are fresh graduates, too. Apparently, interns here are friendly with their higher-ups, just like friends without care of status and hierarchy. It was one big family, and that was the total opposite of the work culture I had. I remembered asking an older intern why employees aren’t going home yet because it was 5 pm. She answered, “Because we just like hanging out and talking to each other here after work is done.’’ I never knew why people would stay longer after work until Ruangguru. Here, coworkers are friends.
My work consisted of creating content every week. My team would have to work with video editors, graphic designers, and sometimes UI designers. I even had the opportunity to direct a video for our Independence Day Youtube project. That was an interesting experience because I got to work together with different people from different divisions of the company, creatively directing, going out to shoot videos, and also editing. I didn’t do that only once either. Along the way, I learned that working with different divisions throughout the company is really common.
Our job description varied from time to time. This was because sometimes the team would be shooting in television studios, making sure our advertisements on different mediums run well, yet we would all be working together for the same purpose: improving education in Indonesia.
Education has always been an issue close to heart, but interning at Ruangguru was an unexpected decision for me. My job at the education agency in Seattle made me wonder whether another desk-job was how I wanted to spend my summer before university. I was curious to work in the busy city of Jakarta, and I dreaded feeling that I could do so much more this summer. Alas, I quit my job, applied for Ruangguru, and everything else was history.
From the start, I knew Ruangguru was the best decision for me. Since education is an important issue for me, I want to take part in improving Indonesia’s education sector. Moreover, I saw the impact Ruangguru has had on their users. So, I wanted to be a part of that journey together with the inspirational people behind the company. At the end of it, I am also immensely grateful to spend most of my time working on the noisiest floor in the building. (Here’s a fun fact: it’s marketing team only.)
Conclusively, my internship at Ruangguru taught me a lot about what I wanted to do for my future. Having touched on a lot of creative aspects of content creating for a growing company and experiencing hands-on work, I became more sure of what I wanted to do after I graduate college. I learned to be able to utilize different kinds of channels to advertise, different kinds of platforms to make content, and meet different kinds of people of various job descriptions. They really helped expand my knowledge of this kind of business. I also met many people who took or are taking the same major as I am, and that inspired me to keep working on what I have now and pursuing my future in Communications and Media studies.
The Ruangguru internship was definitely the practical application of what I learned in class and in my previous jobs on a way bigger scale. Now, I want to use the new skills and knowledge I achieved during the time in Ruangguru to help me excel and bring me closer to my dreams. Ruangguru also taught me not to be afraid of new tasks that might seem daunting. Ruangguru definitely brought me out of my comfort zone to experience working life in a manner I had least expected.
