Learning About Myself at Black World

Internship Reflection

Fall 2023

By: Brianna Chavez

Working with Black World has taught me many things I like and dislike about the media field. On top of that, in general, I think this semester I have learned more about myself through this internship experience.

This semester has tested me in ways like never before. 

As I am in my junior year, classes are getting more difficult, I have more friends who want me to spend time with them, I have more homework, I am the president of a dance team, and I am balancing a part-time job in addition to having this internship. There were a lot of tears, a lot of fear, a lot of feeling like I was doing too much but simultaneously not enough. Having nearly completed the semester, coming out from the other side, I know I have grown stronger for it. But next semester I am going to lighten my workload and focus on doing more things that make me happy.

I was very proud to represent my country and my heritage in my work with Black World.

I had a poem, a feature, a news article, and a mixed-media design published in Black World’s Hispanic Heritage Month Edition that was recently released on December 5. I was shocked at the lack of submissions for Hispanic Heritage Month. I wish more students wanted to be involved in creating stories and submissions for Black World. 

I noticed that several of the submissions were from me, the president of Jubilé Latino, and Sheilly Martinez, the President of the Latin American Student Organization. I feel an obligation to my community to continue to educate others about my culture and Latinidad as a whole. I was happy to provide that perspective to Black World as the majority of the team is Black-identifying. I also learned a lot more about cultures different than mine from this group. For instance, I am not very familiar with global events. I don’t watch the news as much as I should. I was not knowledgeable on the exploitation going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo but because I had to make a social media post about it, I did more research into the topic.

Managing the organization’s Instagram was the most rewarding experience for me as a social media creator. I had hard deadlines to meet for certain events, I got to engage with other student organizations’ social media accounts, I learned customer service skills in our DMs, and when the social media account was doing well, I felt personally responsible. 

There’s a science on how likes and reposts affect one’s self-esteem. By managing several social media accounts when things I post on behalf of the company do well (meaning lots of likes, more followers, reposts, more saves), makes me feel happier. I think I could get better at making captions. It was difficult not to sound repetitive at times. Captions also take me a long time to formulate for some reason. I am much better and quicker at creating the actual image or graphic that goes up with the caption. I will say I learned two main things I will utilize in my other social media jobs going forward: 1. If you schedule a post to go up at 5:30 am you get a lot more likes because it tends to be the first post on everyone’s feed when they wake up and scroll. And 2. Hashtags exist for a reason. And I know it may sound silly, but I thought it was just something millennials thought was cute and/or funny to include. But now I utilize them because I realize they attract more people to see the post.

I wish I had enough time to commit another semester to this organization. It felt like I was just getting started but unfortunately, I had to let them know I would have to leave after December. I did let them know how rewarding the experience truly was for me. Beyond having something new on my resume and hands-on social media experience, I now have friends for a lifetime, and memories and experiences I wouldn’t have had otherwise.