My name is Dardan Çelaj, I’m studying Advertising and Digital Marketing Communications and am currently halfway through my placement year, a placement year being something available on a number of Greenwich's undergraduate Marketing & Advertising degrees. I found my role as a social media marketing assistant at Greenwich Business School (GBS) through an email I received from the Employability Team. By chance, I was checking my emails to confirm if one of my assignments was successfully submitted and I immediately applied.
So far, my placement has been a very fun learning experience and I’ve been able to apply my knowledge gained from my studies, whilst gaining practical experience. My role mainly involves managing GBS’ social channels, so I’ve been heavily involved in content creation for both paid and organic. I work independently to generate ideas for new content, recruiting volunteers through academics, as well as filming and editing videos and images.
I’ve had some memorable experiences, which includes spending the day at the Carlton Tower Jumeirah hotel filming a placement student for an Instagram reel. Similarly, I planned and produced a street-interview styled video in which I question postgraduate students following their graduation ceremony. This was particularly rewarding as this content that was not previously created for GBS socials and gave me a chance to put myself out there.
But I did not stop there, Greenwich Business School gave me opportunities to gain skills in marketing outside of social media. One such opportunity was becoming the host of the Greenwich Means Business podcast, which has significantly improved my networking and public speaking skills. It was also an insightful experience to speak with current students and alumni and hear their story. Other skills I’ve obtained include web-editing and CRM comms.
Some advice I would give to those who wish to do a placement year or summer internship is to always persist and seek new opportunities. For most of my second year, I was applying to many placements and have rejections from most of them, but eventually got into this exciting role through persistence. And once you’ve got yourself a role, make the most out of what it can offer you, so you can better yourself and your career.
