Written By: Tori Franken After a long and exciting six weeks I’m nearing the end of my internship at CPAWS. Throughout my time here I’ve learned many things about the marketing communications industry and a lot about myself.  Here is a list of the 5 things I’ve learned: 1. Organization – Working with a team of people taught me the value of being organized and efficiently managing my time. If you lack either of these skills, it could end up bringing you, or even your team, down.  Being organized contributes to the speed of your work by making each task easier to effectively complete. Proper time management helps you know the pace you need to be setting and whether or not you’ll need to pick it up. 2. Team work – I’ve learned teamwork is very important when working on big projects. You need to be able to cooperate with your teammates so you can have the best possible outcome. Two heads are better than one, and three better than two, and so on. But putting heads together isn’t far from butting heads, something you must avoid to keep the good work flowing. 3. Communication – Good communication is a key element to having good team dynamics. If good communication isn’t achieved, the whole balance of the team could be thrown off and result in bad performance. This means not being afraid to speak your mind when it really matters, not being too proud to hear conflicting opinions, and not being too quick to dismiss someone who disagrees with you. 4.  Work ethic – I’ve learned good work ethic is very important. If you don’t have good work ethic and you’re not on top of your work, you can fall behind very quickly. If you fall behind it can cause a stressful situation that no one wants to be a part of. If you let the work build up it’ll show when you have to cram to finish – good work is given the time to get done properly. 5. Always keep learning – In a new work environment you need to keep an open mind and always try to give yourself the opportunity to keep learning more. This could be asking questions, shadowing someone, or being a part of group discussions. No matter where you are you’ll be able to find someone more experienced than you – and you should take advantage of the knowledge they’ve accrued in their lifetime. Overall, internships are as rewarding as you make it. My time at CPAWS taught me a lot about the kind of industry I’m getting into, and the kind of worker I can be. You’ll face challenges that’ll teach you a lot about yourself, and sometimes you’ll fail. But every failure is another opportunity to learn and do better next time.