My time at panagenda – Insights of an intern

About me

My name is Nicolas Mittheis, I am 16 years old and attend the HLP in Mödling (Austria). This school is aimed at Design and Product Management and I will graduate into 3rd grade after this summer break. My favorite language is English and the most important thing in my life is music.

My first day

So, for the month of July, I was an Intern at the panagenda headquarters in Vienna. Only a few days before my internship started, did it hit me that I actually had to work while all (well at least most) of my friends would spend the next few weeks partying and sleeping (which coincidentally are also two of my favorite things to do). And that I (well, for the most part) wouldn’t be able to join them in doing that. Despite this, I was getting more and more excited with every train station I left behind myself on the train to Vienna. But as my excitement rose, so did my nervousness. What if I didn’t know how to do half the things I was going to be assigned to do? What if my department was going to hate me? And worst of all, what if Microsoft Edge was their browser of choice? But a lot of these worries were resolved as I entered the office and was greeted by a friendly smile.

It belonged to Katrin, the employee assigned to guiding me and giving me tasks (even though I was also going to complete work given to me by the other members of the marketing department). We introduced ourselves and she showed me around the office which was very, and I mean very, impressive. It’s basically the entire 2nd floor of a building, which, on top of that, is located in the first district of Vienna. I soon began working and after what felt like 30 mins my first day was over. From here on out, the speed at which days went by was only going to increase. And I soon found out, that people around me, which weren’t working, were actually doing a lot more sleeping than partying, so I didn’t miss out on a whole lot.

My coworkers

Now in my department, which was Marketing, there were 7 people (including me). As mentioned before, Katrin, who is responsible for content management. Mitch, who is a writer from the US and responsible for writing any texts we needed.

Danny, who is responsible for social media and conferences, but who went on vacation shortly after I started working, so I didn’t see him a lot. Jeffrey, who is the digital designer for websites and flyers etc. Ulrike who is a programmer and implements most of the things designed by Jeffrey. And Xaver who leads and manages the department.

My activities

As I said before, I completed tasks for pretty much everyone in our team. So naturally, they varied a lot. The tasks given to me by Katrin usually included translating something or evaluating data.  For Ulrike I also evaluated some data concerning the browser-choice of email recipients and links on the panagenda-website.

I also uploaded some videos to YouTube, made 3D images and designed some clothes for Danny. My favorite person to receive tasks from though, was Jeffrey. Because when I did, I always got to design something using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign.

Overall

All in all, I can say that I don’t regret my internship at panagenda one bit, but rather appreciate the opportunity given to me. I got to experience the real work-life and -environment first hand for the first time and met some very professional, yet friendly people along the way. My workspace was a lot nicer than expected and I loved the atmosphere in my department (and the whole office), because you could actually notice the people working, yet there was never a day which consisted of “just” work. There was always someone, somewhere, making some silly joke or people interacting with each other.

It was also very nice of them to include me in the inter-human interactions which took place at the office as much as they possibly could. That part especially really made me feel like I was more than just an intern. It really felt like I was a real part of a large team, who coincidentally was only there for 1 month. A big part of that was also because my coworkers didn’t only help me with work-related problems (even though they also did that a lot). For instance, one day I came to the office and asked Jeffrey if he could help me, because there was a rice corn stuck in my Airpods-case (they took a swim in a pool the day before). He instantly started helping me and within 2 or 3 minutes we got it out of the case.

But I’m getting off track. By the time you’re reading this, I’ll have finished my internship and will already be enjoying the rest of summer-vacation. Huge thank you to my department for guiding me through this experience, and also to Sandra for granting me this opportunity in the first place.

Kindest regards, Nick.