Hello! It’s the end of week five and beginning of week six as I write this.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. We all went on a guided bus tour. They took us to watch a short video and then we had the chance to walk down through a tunnel that North Korea dug in an attempt to invade South Korea. The tunnel was discovered in the 70s.
After that we drove to a tourism center where we were able to see into North Korea. There was an entire observation deck and binoculars you could look through. We were able to see a village, a lookout with North Korean soliders, and an old factory.
I had incredibly mixed feelings about the experience. For one, I am very grateful for having the opportunity to go and see it for myself. I think it’s a very important piece of history and modern day politics. Additionally, being able to see a piece of North Korea satisfied my natural curiosity to see inside a very protective nation (the whole ‘you want what’s secretive’ thing, I mean). I was expecting barbed wire and concrete and the majority of the DMZ was covered in greenery. Greenery behind barbed wire with landmine warnings, but greenery nonetheless.
On the other hand, it felt a bit dystopian how built for tourism and profit the experience was. We were taken to three separate gift shops and tourist centers, which although not bad, felt very far removed from this place’s history. I don’t find it tasteful to be selling K-pop Demon Hunters branded DMZ merch, for example. It felt a little haunting, although I’m not sure that’s the right word. I think it’s the ultimate manifestation of how 80 years have changed the trajectory of both Koreas. On one side you have an authoritarian dictatorship and some of the highest poverty levels in the world, and on the other one of the most Capitalistic nations on Earth. So capitalistic that it will even make an active warzone a tourist site for foreigners and even take them past tanks in charter buses.
For soft skills, I would say I’ve developed stronger interpersonal communication skills across a language barrier most primarily. With the exception of my boss, none of my coworkers are fluent in English. I’ve never worked in an environment where this was the case and had a very hard time adjusting and connecting with my coworkers the first few weeks.
However, at this point I was able to find a way to talk to and connect with them. Despite our language barrier and use of a translator, the two of us have found ways to use body language, speaking slowly in our respective languages, and our respective limited English/Korean to find a middle ground. In the future, I think if I was able to overcome a language barrier so large communication difficulties in an English speaking workplace will feel a lot smaller.
As for hard skills, my internship has helped me develop my content creation skills (using traditional tools and AI, which was new to me) and consumer analytics. I have conducted market research to analyze the demographics of foreigners in Korea, which constituted my first week of work. The purpose was to figure out which groups of foreigners would be a best fit for my company’s service and which of the three sub-services should be launched in English first.
My next assignment was to create content in English to market to foreigners. I received incredibly minimal direction for this assignment, limited to basically “make shortform content and one longform video”. I had never made a longform video prior to this internship, so I taught myself the basics of scriptwriting, video editing, and speaking online to create this video. It has not been uploaded yet so I can’t say if it will be successful or not, but the video editing aspect of content creation seems especially relevant.
For shortform content, my boss communicated to me that he wanted to use AI tools to create Youtube Shorts and Tiktoks. I made two without AI and 7-8 using Meta AI. After generating short clips I would put captions over them. This was very challenging because I was not given any resources (no Capcut Pro or AI software) so finding paid video generators that worked consistently was a challenge. That being said, I learned how to search and find resources online alongside how to use AI as a tool to generate content.
I believe that these skills will directly translate to my on-campus job as the Assistant Marketing Manager of The Pitt News this fall. My job will be to assist in managing marketing interns, make content, and analyze data related to marketing campaigns. Everything I am doing in this internship will directly translate to that role. I especially value how hands-off this experience has been, because although much of it has been a challenge I will be incredibly well-prepared to handle any position with higher levels of support. At TPN there will be a team behind me and I am certain I will be better equipped as a manager because of this experience.
Looking forward to the rest of this internship still. Afterwards I will be solo traveling to China for three weeks. I’m booking all of my hostels tonight, and I’m very excited. Until next time!
Sydney