Sydney Haus recently completed an internship with the Barnesville EDA. This is what they had to say about the experience.
I am honestly so grateful for the many opportunities that Karen, the Barnesville EDA Director and Bailey, the Mainstreet Program Director, have given me throughout this entire summer. I have grown so much in my time interning here. Did I even know what Economic Development was about when I applied? Nope! But I figured it had something to with wanting to grow the city and the community.
What I’ve come to learn from my internship is that idea of what I thought economic development was, barely scratched the surface of what economic development truly is. There is a lot of deliberate thought and planning put into things behind the scenes that most people do not know about. Here at the Barnesville EDA, we were able to work with so types of people in all different kinds of professions. From families looking for a home, to people considering opening up a business, business owners, realtors and builders. This is truly a people orientated job because you not only have to care about what’s happening in the city presently but also how you can make the future of the city better.
Some of what I experienced here not only, bettered my own skills in public relations and communications, but hopefully bettered the city. One of the initiatives that Barnesville has is it’s Work Local initiative, which primarily focuses on promoting job opportunities that are in Barnesville, especially to those that commute for work. One thing that I got to do with this initiative was test out my graphic design skills working on a certain project, which has honestly been one of the most gratifying projects during my internship.
This project was designing a business card, one side said, ‘Work Local’ and had a QR code that brought people to the Barnesville job openings on our city page. This city page displays all the job openings of all the businesses in town if they contacted our office about having an opening. Then the other side of the business card side said ‘Support Local’ as well as another QR code that brought people to the Barnesville business directory if scanned. After the business cards were delivered to us, I personally delivered them to the businesses in town over a couple of days. This was a really fulfilling part of my internship because I had business owners tell me they were excited about the cards because they saw them in other businesses in town.
Another project I worked on was sending out multiple emails to realtors in the Fargo-Moorhead area trying to promote Barnesville and pitching to them why they should look at it with their clients. This was a harder part because I have no experience in marketing. One of the bigger learning curves for me was trying to figure out a way to attract attention of realtors so they would open the email. This caused me to try multiple subject lines till I felt like I had a good one. This project taught me how to consider what a person would want to see in their position.
This internship has helped me learn a lot in my field as a Public Relations and Digital Media Major and I know will help me far into the future as I continue my professional growth. Somethings that I have taken away from this is that people love seeing themselves in whatever you’re trying to market or sell them on, whether it’s an idea or an action. There are so many things to consider when you are trying to communicate with a certain audience. Another thing that has helped me improve my design skills is that even though something is alright or good, you don’t settle there. That all the small details turn something that was good into something that is great, but never perfect since nothing can be perfect.
I am so glad that I got to work with both Karen and Bailey this summer because they taught me so much and were patient to help me learn along the way. Their dedication and passion to this job just reminds me just how much they care about the city and making it better. I will miss them once I’m gone. I am so glad I got to learn how important economic development is to a city and how much it can help improve a city too.