Hey, I’m Ashley and I’m a third year Public Relations/Arts student at the University of Canberra. A core unit in my degree is an internship, which is used to help students gain real world experience and apply what we have learnt in class to a business. While I do adore Canberra, I wanted to intern at an agency away from home, to get another perspective of the #PRLife.
With Sling & Stone, I got the chance to immerse myself in the Sydney lifestyle three days a week for six weeks. I lived in Sydney, shopped (Pitt Street is amazing), only caught the wrong train once (!), and lived like I was a local — which I loved. A big city is where I want to be when I graduate.
Every week I would drive, catch the bus or train back and forth from Canberra to be home on the weekends. Despite this constant back and forth, I found my time here incredibly rewarding and worth the six hours of travel a week.
Sling & Stone culture
I loved the culture at Sling & Stone. It’s given me pretty high expectations for where I’ll end up working when I graduate. Everyone worked hard and always went above and beyond for their clients — a true extension of any team.
While they worked hard, they also knew how to have fun. On Fridays there were pub lunches and agency meetings to discuss the week and give ‘Crabs’ (Sling & Stone’s version of ‘props’ or positive feedback) to one another; there were team dinners like Raclette night (where I ate way too much cheese and had some fantastic French wine), and Slava night — the annual big dinner where the entire agency gets their hands dirty, cooking a full three course meal for each other (and of course make some amazing drinks). And finally, we celebrated the weekend with Friday drinks at the office’s in-house bar aka the ‘Crab Shack’.
What I learnt during my Slingternship
Throughout my six week stint, I worked across various clients and a range of different tasks. I was able to participate in brainstorms, help draft media materials and work on media lists for clients and the agency. I also got involved with media & influencer gifting for a number of consumer brands, as well as general research to support teams across the agency. Every task that I helped on had real impact and results for the team — it was never work for the sake of work.
I also really loved how modern the agency was. Sling & Stone used a range of tech programs and devices to run the business. From time tracking to music streaming, we used the latest tech to get work done efficiently.
I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for an internship to apply at Sling & Stone. I had a blast, learnt a lot, felt welcomed and got to work on so many awesome projects. And to those who live interstate, being able to go somewhere else for an internship has been one of the most rewarding experiences.
